Casual Lady Dress + How to Sew with a Double Needle

As you know, I mostly sew for my two girls but recently I decided to make something for myself using the Casual Lady pattern. The PDF pattern has options to make it into a dress or a top, and I opted for the dress version. Because a girl can’t ever have too many dresses, right? This knit dress is super comfortable for summer. I can already tell I’m going to get a lot of use out of it.

The dress has only four pattern pieces, no closures, and cap sleeves, so it’s a quick and easy pattern to sew, even for beginners! Although my measurements fell within the medium size, I ended up cutting it down to a small which was a much better fit. The cut is very flattering – slightly form fitting but not too clingy.

What I especially love about this dress is that you can dress it up or down. It looks great with a pair of flip flops and a ponytail, or you can accessorize with some jewelry and wedges if you want to dress it up a bit. It can even be worn in the fall with a scarf or cardigan.

I used a double needle to hem the bottom, sleeves, and top stitch around the neckline. If you need help with a double needle, check out the tutorial below!

How to Sew with a Double Needle

Have you ever noticed how store bought knit clothing has that neat little double stitch line on the hem? That’s done with a coverstitch machine, which is quite expensive. You can easily duplicate that look by sewing with a double needle. It’s quite easy to use a double needle, and it will give any project you sew with knits a much more professional finish.

Do you get one of these little thingamajigs with your sewing machine?

It’s an extra spool pin and it goes right on top of the bobbin winder to hold the second spool of thread. I hate to admit how long I had this before I knew what it was for. I’d seen many tutorials for how to sew with a double needle which all had different methods of where to put the second spool of thread. Most recommended loading it right in front of the first spool of thread. I even saw one that recommended taping a dowel to your machine to hold the second spool of thread. You don’t need to do any of that if you have an extra spool pin which makes sewing with a double needle so easy!

Here’s how to use your double needle:

1. Replace your regular needle with the double needle.

2. Attach your zig-zag foot which has a wide enough opening for the double needle. I normally sew knits with a walking foot but for reasons I can’t explain the zig-zag foot works better with the double needle.

3. Load your first spool of thread as you normally do and thread it though the left side of the double needle.

4. Put the extra spool pin onto the bobbin winder shaft and load it with your second spool of thread. Don’t have a second spool? No problem! Just wind a bobbin with the same color thread as your first spool!

5. Thread the right needle using your second spool of thread, but DO NOT pass the thread through the needle bar thread guide this time. I made this mistake the first time I sewed with a double needle and the right thread kept skipping stitches. I was so frustrated and it took me forever to figure out what the problem was.

6. Set your stitch length to a 4 and start sewing on the RIGHT / TOP side of your fabric. The double line is only visible on one side of the fabric so you want to sew on the side that will be showing.

I used a double needle to sew the hem, sleeves and neckline of my Casual Lady dress. See what a professional finish it gives you?