After sewing three different versions of the blouse option I thought it was time to also try sewing a dress after the pattern Paris by Annika from Schnittliebe during the pattern testing. As well as with my second and third blouse I sewed size 44/46.
Of course the design features of the dress are nearly the same as the ones of the blouse. It's a more fitted bodice with a ruffeled waist and a flared skirt only the skirt has a dress length now. I even shortened the original skirt pattern a bit as I like it more when a dress ends just above my knees and not in the middle of the shin as intended.
You can still decide between three different sleeve options - bell sleeves, cuffed sleeves and sleeves with an attached ruffle. As you can see I decided to sew my dress with the cuffed sleeves.
A special of the dress design are for sure the patch pockets. I love when a dress pattern already includes pockets so I don't have to add them myself. And these attached pockets are a room to play with fabric design and colour combinations I think.
As my main fabric (cotton from an old bed sheet) is in this light blue which is not really a colour I wear often I used the pockets as kind of a style break on my dress by sewing them out of a very different kind of fabric - Jeans! Because the cotton is a bit thicker and stronger than for example a viscose fabric it handles the weight of the jeans fabric quite well which I'm really happy about.
I also had a handfull of buttons in my stash who fit perfectly to the jeans colour of the pockets. I ordered them form Julia's Stoffquelle as one of the options for my red blouse version of the Paris but decided to go with the smaller buttons for the blouse. Therefore I had these buttons still available for the dress.
But because I thought I would use them on a blouse I only ordered 8 of the buttons. During the button placing process I realized I definetly needed 4 of the buttons on the bodice and therefore had only 4 buttons for the skirt. If I would sew them with the same distance as the buttons on the bodice the slit in front would be far to high. So I decided to change the intervall of the buttons from 5cm between each button on the bodice to 10cm between each button on the skirt.
In the back you may see one original seam from the bed sheet. I wanted to make the cutting process as easy as possible for me so I layed the bed sheet with the side seams on the side and placed the pattern pieces which you cut in fold at one of these seams.
This way it was easier for me to lay my fabric really flat and without distorting either the upper or lower part of the fabric. And all I did during the sewing process later was matching the existing seams in the middle of the back bodice and back skirt.
If you have now read this far you can see the little speacial detail I added to the dress. I embroidered the small scrap of jeans fabric even before I knew I was making this dress. It was my activity during an online sewing event and I really like how my hot-air balloon turned out.
So when I started this dress and came to the decision on what fabric to use for the pockets the decision was made because of the hot-air baloon I had on a jeans scrap. I had to adjust the pocket pattern a bit as it is even bigger than what I had embroidered the baloon on but I think the pockets are still big enough for this dress. I'm so happy I reused the embroidery as I don't know how I would've used it otherwise.
In conclusion the dress makes me just as happy as the blouses and I still think of so many possible versions I could sew in the future. But for now I think I will turn to a different pattern first to get a bit more variety in my sewing process again.
Comments