Baker Sewalong: Learn to Sew a Smock Dress

The Baker Sewalong is a step-by-step video series designed to guide you through sewing the Baker, from choosing your size to finishing the final details.

In this sewalong, we walk you through each stage of the process in short, focused lessons. You can move through the videos at your own pace, pause as needed, or skip ahead if you’re already comfortable with certain steps.

Baker has a flowing silhouette with a notch neckline adorned with a tie. The lined yoke finishes just below the bust at the front. Delicate gathers below the yoke on both the front and back center panels follow a gentle A-line silhouette. Princess seams add structure and shape, and the pouf sleeves feature an elastic casing that finishes just above the elbow, giving a playful and feminine touch.

To follow along, you’ll need the Baker Pattern. Seamwork members can download it as part of their membership, and non-members can purchase it individually in the shop.

Getting Started

Fabric recommendations: Look for lightweight or medium-weight woven fabrics such as linen, chambray, batiste, lawn, clip dot, gauze, double gauze, rayon challis, rayon crepe, cupro, silk, and Tencel.

Fabric qualities to look for: When choosing fabric for the Baker dress, it's important to consider both the weight and drape, as these factors significantly influence how the dress fits and moves on your body.

A lightweight fabric with a fluid drape, such as a linen and rayon blend, will create a soft, flowing silhouette.

In contrast, a heavier fabric with a more structured drape, such as the jacquard used in Franki’s sample, will offer a more defined shape.

A fabric with a crisp hand, like shirting or viole, will stand away from the body, for more of a floaty effect, similar to the sample that Sophia is wearing.

Take the time to select a fabric that best suits your style and your desired effect.

Seamwork members, take advantage of your member deals this month! You can save up to 20% off your order here.

Prepare to Sew

This lesson covers all the basic things you need to know to get started with this sewalong. If you’re a beginner, this will be really helpful to watch!

If you feel like you already know how to get your pattern and fabric ready for sewing, go ahead and skip to the next lesson and you'll learn to do some helpful fitting adjustments.

You're going to learn how to:

• Select a pattern and reference its skill level


• Select a size


• Prepare patterns and fabric


• Cut and mark fabric

Fitting Adjustments

In this video, you’ll learn some helpful fitting adjustments for the Baker dress.

Yoke Length
The yoke should end below your bust. You can lengthen or shorten it to make sure it's ending in the right place. Remeber to add or remove length from your front skirt pattern piece.

Sleeve Length
You can lengthen or shorten the sleeves to suit your personal preference.

We created a free downloadable PDF called the Four Height Zones to help you gather the information you need to make adjustments to your pattern where you need it. We recommend printing it out and writing your height measurements on it to keep in your sewing journal.

Compare these measurements to the corresponding landmarks on your pattern pieces, and you'll know how much you need to shorten or lengthen that part of the pattern.

Here are some additional fitting tips:

• Follow this tutorial to lengthen and shorten a sewing pattern
  


• If you need to adjust the armhole depth, use this tutorial.


• To adjust the shoulder slope, follow this tutorial.


• 
  Here are fitting tutorials for the shoulders and sleeves.


• Here are tutorials for wide or narrow shoulder adjustments
  


• Here are tutorials for small bust adjustments and full bust adjustments.


• If you prefer videos, there are bust adjustment videos in the Hansie sewalong here
  

Sewing Instructions

The PDF instructions will be your main guide as you work through this pattern, but we've created this video to walk you through the trickiest steps in detail. If you need help on a step not shown in this video, check out the Community Group Sew, where other Seamworkers and staff are ready to help out!

If you're brand new to sewing, check out the Learn To Sew For Absolute Beginners course.

The trickiest steps for this pattern are:

• Attach yoke facing (01:50)


• Attach sleeves (14:14)