Color Block Charleston Dress Pattern

I recently purged my closet, and donated a handful of my older wintry dresses that were out of style or I was just sick of. It felt great, and gave me the push to make some new dresses, since I’m now without my old trusty backups that in reality were what I most often ended up wearing because of the simple fact that they were there. Today I’m sharing my recent make using the Charleston Dress Pattern from Hey June Handmade (spoiler alert: it’s allll good news)!

This is my second version of the Charleston Dress, as I used it for a faux suede black dress for my husband’s Christmas work party a couple years ago. For that version, I wanted more body in the skirt so hacked my own pleated skirt portion.

I had been wanting to make another Charleston since that dress, but had been worried that it wouldn’t be very flattering on my pear-shape figure. I’ve seen lots of cute versions on other pear shapes though in the Hey June Handmade Facebook group (the pattern comes with a more fitted bottom and this pleated/pocketed version), so I planned to give it a try sometime.

Then I happened to find this black and grey vintage floral at Value Village one day and knew it would be perfect for a Charleston Dress. It is seriously something I’d find my grandma wearing 40 years ago, or see in one of her quilts. It was so perfectly vintage and there was a lot of it and I was thrilled.

I initially had a vision of adding a neon color for the color blocking, but as I didn’t have anything on hand that would work, I ended up pairing it with a pink scuba I had leftover from this hacked Pretty in Peplum Top I made for Lola last year. I was a little worried about the incredible stretch recovery of the scuba, as it made the top quite tight in my faux suede version, but with my fingers crossed figured it would be okay as just the side panel and pocket accents. And luckily it was!

I made a straight medium, and the fit is perfect for me thanks to the extra room in the bottom for the pleated skirt version.

I also added 3 inches to the skirt hem, and then hemmed the skirt about 5/8″ to have it hit mid knee on me (I’m 5’6″ with a long torso and short legs relatively). I love that you can omit the zipper if desired, and I did that by offsetting the center back cutting lines 3/8″ (the seam allowance) from the edge of the fabric folded edge. I love the look of the zipper but was going for my laziest options ;).

I could rave about Adrianna and her patterns all day (the Lane Raglan is another favorite of mine), as they are always the perfect mix of simplicity with uniqueness. Not to mention they always go together seamlessly (no pun intended) and are a pleasure to sew.

The Charleston Dress is definitely one I’ll keep coming back to. I feel like there are so many different versions I still want to make!

On a side note, this cute little red brick road is not too far from my house, and is one of the last remaining parts of an old wagon road that was part of the 3300 mile transcontinental road from Seattle to Boston. There’s a one mile stretch of the red brick (layed in 1913!) left and I’ve always wanted to take photos there but hadn’t until recently. So you will be seeing more of it soon – isn’t it cute though?! Cute and very bumpy to drive on ;).