Oh this has been on the queue for awhile! And at some point, bolstered by the truly glowing reviews of this pattern, I attached it in my head to this lemon printed fabric I have had slumming in my stash for years. It is stretch poplin and I was going to make a Grainline Morris jacket from it before I faced how much I don't like open jackets like the Morris. Then I was going to make pants from it and probably I should have stopped there. Oops. I read the blogs and went with a size S and cropped it about 20 cm. However I didn't have quite enough fabric, especially once I realised it was directional, and I did NOT dig through my stash to discover I had a large, similar weight matching stretchy navy blue piece...nope, I didn't do that. Nor did I decide to make it sleeveless. Instead, I somehow decided that using oiled cotton for the hood would be smart.
Don't be like me
This fabric mixing is only part of an unfixable problem. The hood is crappy and sits up at attention due to the firm oiled cotton. I don't find it to be a perfectly amazing hood that encircles my head, as others have said. It's just your usual fashion hood. The dress is overall massive. MASSIVE. I couldn't maintain the attention span for any hem elastic. I get that the hem elastic probably pulls things in quite a bit, but I had about 20 cm of ease through the entire front body and chest from the upper chest down. I could wear an entire outfit under it. I will probably restrain myself from sending it to the op shop while I think of little shorts or things I can make to salvage this great fabric.
In the meantime I managed to harvest the size XS out of the pattern pieces and I have already cut out the entire dress in a disturbing shade of bright celery greenish-yellow, which is a fabric I actually bought from The Fabric Store specifically to make this dress and which with the Wise Eye of experience I should have used first. It's also stretchy - I have serious clothing claustrophobia and if I feel any entrapment whilst pulling it on I will refuse to wear an item. I think I'm committing to the entire dress this time.
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When I finally got around to sewing it (it's been 3 months) I had basically zero expectation. All the joy had leached out on the first go-round. It's a satisfying dress to put together, with all the pieces matching up nicely. Except, of course, the elastic cuffs. Since I had neglected to use them the first time I had not paid attention to the weird construction method recommended. It might work on the hem, but I think it's a horrible idea on the cuffs unless you have an ultra-skinny arm option for your sewing machine. I also have PTSD from my Wheaton windbreaker which had similarly catastrophic cuff issues, and that didn't help. I did try to do both cuffs, and they were a loss. I scavenged in my scraps and out of sheer luck I found the scraps from this cutting (again, recall it's been months!) and I redid normal cuffs, also did the hem in the usual way of attaching the cuff, then inserting the elastic. I used 1.5" elastic instead of 2", so it would fit nicely inside the cuffs and hem band.
So, my measurements are 33-27-37 and no way would I have made the XS going by the instructions or the size chart. However, in my stretchy sateen it is clearly the best fit. It still seems kind of shapeless through the chest due to the lack of real waist shaping. I absolutely couldn't make this dress in a non-stretch fabric as I would have killer claustrophobia and wouldn't manage to get it on, but in this bright stretchy fabric it is a glowing tunnel to reach the neckhole-exit. It's not something I'll make again in a woven though I have a sort of curiosity if it could be hacked with stable knits at some point. The yellow dress has certainly garnered attention and compliments at work, also was pretty good to bike in since the elastic keeps it snug on my thighs, so despite the subjective feeling of shapelessness it seems to be a win - enough that I'm kind of wondering whether I should return to the lemon dress. I think if I make it sleeveless or short sleeved and remove the hood it would already be quite fun, and I could then evaluate if it's worth applying the hem elastic.
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