Adrianna Dress

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Firstly, hello again after a long pause of no blogging. For no particular reason other than a busy life that has to encompass a great deal more than just sewing. However, there is time to do this, and I enjoy documenting how things come together and reminding myself how satisfying my makes are. To take stock instead of diving into the next project is how I should be working. So I must make more time to write. It does prove most tricky to get decent pictures though. I have discovered that in the afternoon, which is usually when I’m ready to takes some snaps, the sun creates glare and shadows on my only blank wall in the house that lends itself to photography. I need to remember this and snap in the morning.

When I saw this dress pattern from The Friday Pattern Company I had a sharp intake of breath. A lot has to do with the brilliant fabric choice that lends itself to showing off this simple clever design.

I didn’t have immediate plans to make it but was certainly tempted. Then one afternoon I was musing over my fabric stash trying to decide what to sew with what fabric. One of my plans for this year is to seriously reduce the amount of fabric I have hanging around. Anyway I came across a recently gifted piece of viscose crepe with embossed birds. A massive light bulb popped above my head and before I could say “stash buster” I’d ordered the pdf and got it all cut out!

To my delight, I just had enough fabric! This makes me very happy. The pattern called for a bit more, but I did squeeze this size L dress out of just 1.8 metres. Very satisfying.

I have previously made the Adrienne Blouse from The Friday Pattern Company. This is a similar, knit t shirt version of this pattern, but I decided not to try and adapt that. Good call, as the construction with the facing over the shoulder seam is very neat and clever, something I would not have come up.

The make up was not all plain sailing The elastic on the shoulders was far too short for me. The measurements for lengths of elastic are given on the pattern as a guide, but of course will depend on the elasticity of your elastic. I did think mine was a bit tight, and then when inserted it I had my shoulders up round my ears! I had tacked the sleeve in place with this problem in mind, so it wasn’t too much hassle to take apart and re-insert longer lengths of elastic.

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I love the way this dress looks on the inside. So much so, I have added the picture below to show you how neat it ends up. When you insert the sleeves the front and back facings are also incorporated and then these cover the seams. Neat!

20200302150636 — This is the dress inside out.

When it came to the hem, I wasn’t sure that a turned up machine sewn hem was going to work on this fabric. My unfinished hem was wonky, meaning I had to lop some off to even it up. This in mind I didn’t want to do a hand sewn hem either. I think hand sewn hems look good when they are deep, but I didn’t want this dress any shorter. So I got my overlocker into a 2 thread rolled hem mode and whizzed round. Very quick, neat, and I think it suits this fabric. Also it meant that I needn’t show any more leg than I wanted to!

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