Hello, I’m An Ca and I am so pleased to see you all on the New Horizons Designs blog again showing you a Summit Peak Sweater Dress. If you love my post you can visit my sewing blog: Flaxfield Sewing, or my Instagram account: flaxfield_sewing.
In Belgium it is very cold at this time of year. Nothing is now more comfortable and warm to wear than my all-time favorite: the Summit Peak Hoodie. Wearing a Hoodie during the day is usually okay, but sometimes I want to wear something with just that little bit more, for example to go to work. To be able to fall back on the Summit (for any occasion) I decided to turn this pattern into a sweater dress. And not just a sweater dress, no, one with the fantastic collar of the Knoxville Top and one with pockets! You can follow my tutorial to make your own comfy copy.
WHAT DO YOU NEED
Of course you need the patterns of the Summit Peak Hoodie and the Knoxville Top.
You need all the pattern pieces of the Summit , except for the collar and the hood (photo 2). From the Knoxville you need the collar and the upper side of the front pattern piece (photo3).
ADJUSTING THE NECKLINE
The first thing you need to do, after you cut out all your paper pattern parts, is adjust the collar of your Summit. The Summit is a raglan hoodie, which means that the head of your sleeve is a part of the neckline. So you have to reconstruct your neckline by placing the pattern parts of the sleeve and the front against each other (you don’t need the back). Remember that the seam allowance is already included in the pattern, so you should subtract it before placing the pattern parts against each other (photo 4). Also determine the middle of your shoulder and put a little mark there.
Take your front piece of the Knoxville and fold it in half. Mark the seam allowance on the shoulder and match the top of the shoulder (minus the seam allowance) with the shoulder marking on your Summit sleeve (photo 5). Line the bottom of the neckline with the mid front of the summit (photo 6)
Draw your new neckline (Photo 7). Take your pattern parts apart and draw a straight line from the beginning of your seam allowance to the side of your pattern (like the green line on photo 8).
Cut out your new neckline. This should look like mine on Photo 9.
LENGTHEN YOUR BODICE
Let’s start with the back part. Stick enough paper at the bottom of the hem and along the side seam of your pattern piece.
The seam of my Summit Hoodie (without the band) falls right on my hips. When I wear a sweaterdress, I like to have a bit of room on the hips, so I added 1 cm (3/8″) at the bottom side seam (green line). From my waist (red line), I drew a smooth line (blue) to the green line. This is the new side seam.
I extended the hem by 25 cm or 10 inches.
Do the same with the side seam of the Front B. Make sure that the two seams (back and front B° match perfectly.
THE POCKETS
Stick 2 sheets of paper together and place them under your Front B.
I wanted to have my pocket 35 cm or 14 inches deep so I measured this distance on the Front B piece (blue line). Then I draw a perpendicular line at 35 cm (green line). Draw it also on the underlying paper. Then copy both seams of Front B on the underlying paper (blue and red line). Also copy the bottom seamline.
Your pocket will look like this one on photo 14. Now add the seam allowance to the top of the pocket.
ADJUSTING THE WAISTBAND
I have lengthened the waistband by 2 cm or 0.8 inches.
SEW SEW SEW!
After you have cut all the pattern pieces out of the fabric you can start with the fun part: sewing. We’ll start with assembling the pockets.
Fold over the seam allowance at the top of your pocket pieces (Photo 16). Sew.
Baste the pocket parts on Front B (photo 17).
On Photo 18, you can see what your front parts should look like now. Sew them together according to the instructions of the summit Peak Hoodie. Your front will look like mine photo 19.
You can now sew the entire dress according to the instructions of the Summit Peak Hoodie. To sew the collar, take the instructions of the Knoxville.
You ‘re all done! I’m so pleased with my dress and I wear it a lot! If you sew one, I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.
Share your Summit Peak Sweater Dress
I hope you love this tutorial and please post some pictures in the New Horizons Designs Facebook group or on Instagram #Newhorizonssewing if you make your own beautiful dress.
Lots of love
X
An Ca
