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A 128 Russian Settlers' Dress with Back Pleats

June 16, 2025 1 Comment on A 128 Russian Settlers' Dress with Back Pleats

I have been wanting to make the 128 Russian Settlers' Dress, particularly the sarafan, or overdress, into a sundress for myself, for a while. I am planning to make two this month, and today I want to show you the first one I made!

For this dress, I used a hand woven (and spun and dyed and embroidered) indigo cotton that I purchased in Guatemala. This gorgeous cloth was really a corte, or traditional Mayan skirt. It is made into a large loop of fabric that is then worn gathered and cinched with a belt in Guatemala. I loved this fabric when I saw it at a market and I bought it thinking I would use it for something like this dresss. Since the sarafan from this pattern is mostly large rectangles, the corte was perfect for this pattern -- barely leaving any left over fabric to make an almost no waste garment. The corte was wide enough to cut the full front and back of the pattern, but it was not as long as the pattern indicates. Which actulally worked out well because I wanted this dress to be shorter anyway. The fabric is a little heavier than a typical sundress would be made from, so having a shorter dress is one way to keep it a little cooler for the warm months.

I cut the band at 33", which is my high bust measurement, or the measurement of where I wanted the band to rest when the dress is worn (which was actually slightly above my high bust).

I also wanted to pleat the back as the instructions in the detailing section of the pattern show how to do. The detailing gives instructions for box pleats and knife pleats. I did box pleats because I also want to try the honeycomb embroidery option (which I will show another time). I used tracing paper and a tracing wheel to mark the pleat lines. My measurements indicated that the last box pleat was pleated almost to the seam allowance. It is easy to adjust pleats slightly to fit the band, and I did not have any problems with it.

paper pattern and tracing paper laid over fabric with lines from tracing shown on fabric

This pleating is pretty simple and I pinned and pressed the pleats, then basted them in place. I pressed well from the front and back of the fabric. I did not use the fabric stay the pattern suggests as I found it was difficult to keep straight when I was basting, but it maybe helpful for lighter-weight fabrics.

I looked at the stash of ribbons I had and decided to use a wider ribbon (1"/2.5cm) and heavier ribbon than suggested. The heavier fabric and thick embroidery lines on the fabric made this design choice of an embroidered ribbon make sense to me. Having a wider ribbon also meant that it would make sense to elimiate a row of ribbon and just have two ribbon lines with longer pleats between them. So that is what I did -- I adjusted the placement lines for the ribbons and sewed them in place.

dark blue pleated fabric with several options of ribbon on top

Ribbon options

Dark blue pleated fabric with two rows of embroidered cream colored ribbon on top

I gathered the front of the dress (I did not attempt to do pleating, though you can do that, transfering the lines from the back to the front).

pulling two gathering threads on the front of a dark blue fabric dress

I used a light weight interfacing in the band and the straps to give some more stability to these parts of the dress. My straps were very long; I like the dress to sit fairly high on my chest (I have a long torso), so I basted and then hand sewed the straps in place from the wrong side. I left the straps long, rather than cut them -- mainly because I didn't want to cut the fabric, but it can also be helpful for adjustments later and even giving some stability to the dress.

interfacing applyed to wrong side of dark blue dress band

close up of the straps sewn to inside of dress

I hemmed this dress with the same deep hem of the original -- about 4.5"-- and I used a blind hem stitch, which ended up being not too "blind" because I had to make my stitch fairly wide to be sure I caught the thick fabric. This deep hem put the dress exactly where I wanted it at my knees.

And that is my new 128 Russian Settlers' Dress! Do you have any questions about it? What would you make this dress from? Would you do the pleating? Add ribbon? Have you made it before? Tell us everything in the comments!