Things have been going so well recently, time for some new patterns and drama! (Not entirely, but my scrap stash is all over the floor to plan this dress and got annoying so it became a priority.) I am using some really precious stash for this dress with the hope that the side ties make it a relatively forgiving fit. It's not a look I would want a bunch of.
I started in with the strong opinions pretty early with this one.
The pattern is put shortwise on the A0s so each pattern piece has to be taped together in the middle. The third page of the A0 was nearly blank. Huge waste of paper. And as I cut I realised...this is a pattern finished with bias tape, and there is no bias tape pattern piece. A pet peeve of mine. We are not really off to a good start. I decided that I'm tired of my gross non folded bias pieces and dug into my stash for some good old vintage polyester bias tape. Once I did that I realised I still had to make side ties, and I ended up pulling out my bias tape maker, and using that to fold up the ties, which was very fun. Maybe I do like making bias tape after all...
size straight 8, shortened 1" at the waist shorten line and planned a deeper hem for the remaining 2 cm that need to come off.
The neck has two cut options but weirdly the seam allowance line that goes all along the pattern vanishes at the lower neck line, leaving me to wonder if I need to add a seam allowance there or what. I ended up cutting 1cm above that line as it really looks like that's the continuation of the SA.
The side tie marks don't line up. I thought maybe that was strategic, placing them where they will pull the dress just right. I don't know.
Sewing this was easy. However, this is one of those very homemade, beginner type patterns that will not look very good unless you are an experienced sewist who can trouble shoot ahead of time. Back zip, with bias taping. No advice at all in the instructions for creating a decent finish. I taped over the top of my zip and then did a little tuck and fold with the inside of my bias tape to keep it relatively neat.
Finally it does fit but it's skin tight. The designer mentions that it's a snug fit, but what I didn't realise was that it's a REALLY snug fit. Seems like you should have ease in the sides so that you can actually pull the side ties in and do something shapey with them, but in my case they have to be as loose as possible or I can't get the dress on. This means that the ties...are useless. The ties are also extremely long, meant to be as long as the entire dress, I suppose. You could just use one tie on each side instead of two if you didn't want that effect (or no ties! Since they aren't doing anything!) The armscye is too tight on me, of course - I tried it on and thought it would be ok but somewhere in there it seems like it just got tighter. I didn't cut any additional depth.
So, there are things I would do differently if I made this again - size up (length was good), deepen the armscye and probably create a partial facing to help clean up the finishing. I will, however, never make this again. I find it kind of nauseating as a style on me, too cutesy somehow. I do see how the full length panels are quite flattering, but it doesn't inspire me. I am trying to pawn it off on friends, but it hasn't found a home yet.
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