Anda Made Some More Dresses!

Now, I have chatted on at length about the virtues of Burdastyle's Anda dress before (here), but to summarise: it is a very easy dress to make and wear that shows off printed fabric very well. But just HOW well does it show off print, I wonder? Just how ridiculous can the print be, and still the Anda dress pattern will just soak it up and display it as perfectly wearable? I think these are questions of potentially global importance. I set about seeking answers:

First up is a version I made from a charity shopped childrens' bedsheet. The above picture is when I wore the final garment to the Fiesta de Gracia, and got my bottom pinched by one of the many street decorations, cheeky devil! Making this turned out to be a bit of a pain in the arse, as the fabric was too thin to use in a single layer, so I had to alter the manufacture method to self-line the bugger. I made a couple of fitting changes to the original Anda pattern, I raised the elastic casing to make it more empire-line (my African dress is a bit ambiguous, neither empire nor waisted) plus I made the top section a bit tighter by taking it in at the side seams. At first it evidently wasn't taken in enough, as when I tried it on my boy declared that I looked like a special patient. I took it in some more and the comment seemed to have been withdrawn. Here's a close up of the self-bound neckline, don't mind Wizardface:

Over all, the dress is a bit too thick, I probably should have used something finer to line it with, rather than simply using the other half of the sheet. Also, argueably it's a little 'maternity', but I think that is somewhat unavoidable with gathering such as this. Neither of these things prevent me from wearing it, and so you see this dress pattern is able to carry off print as strange as this:

Second up, is another African printed fabric version. Before you get all 'Zo, you've tried and tested it in African fabric before, what's the dealio?', well Homes, THIS is the frikkin dealio!:

This fabric was a gift that had been sitting in my stash for some time waiting for the right project. Well, my best mate Vic is heading off soon for a year long Oz adventure, and thus requires some hella-hot weather wear. With the chicken fabric in one hand and altered Anda pattern in the other, I stepped up. Initailly the fabric was really stiff, but after a wash it changed to a soft, almost silky texture. Despite that, this fabric still scared me. The eternal chicken-or-the-egg debate, objectified into fabric, might be enough to drive the sanest person crazy. Was it simply too much for the Anda pattern to tame? I always knew this dress would fall somewhere between ridiculous and amazing, but I feel the outcome has fallen firmly towards the latter.

So, in conclusion, the Anda dress pattern is apparently capable of turning the most fruitloop of fabric prints into a wearable garment. I feel that my Anda work is done, but I really hope someone takes this quest further and deploys even more insane prints. Let's see how far we can take this people!