On The Fence: Fringe Dress

So, this dress. I have a lot of conflicting feels about this dress. I actually made it one whole year ago, to wear to my children's 2nd and 5th birthday party. Next week they will turn 3 and 6, but have yet to share this dress until now. I just couldn't work out how I felt about it, and therefore, wasn't sure what to write. Having failed to fall in love with it during its first outing, the weather then turned too cold to wear it again that year. When I saw it hanging in my wardrobe during the colder months I'd have some vague thoughts about cutting it up, harvesting the larger sections of fabric to combine with the short length I have left, and making a top instead. But then this summer came rolling round, and I ended up wearing it a ton, which kind of muddied those plans.

Pattern:

No prizes for recognising that I've used the Chalk & Notch Fringe dress/blouse pattern here. It was a smash hit in 2018, so I had ample opportunity to see lots of different versions on social media. I am really NOT a dress person, but I do sometimes fantasise about breezing around in a dress. I was struck by the clever proportions of the Fringe's loosely-fitted bodice, and the not-super-gathered skirt, plus the gently shaped skirt hem. I really dislike wearing fit-and-flare dresses because I feel too 'little girl in her party dress' in them, but I was intrigued but this pattern's updated take on that style. 

(image source: Chalk & Notch)

The Fringe dress pattern includes two neckline/bodice variations: a V-shaped, button-up front and this dramatic cut out. I appreciate the button-up version for a nice day look, but the cut out appealed to me the most. You can also choose where (or if) you insert the waist ties. I chose to insert them in the front waist darts, so they tie up at the back. 

Normally I pinch out a couple of centimetres from the length of bodices and tops to account for my short-waistedness, but the waistline of the Fringe dress seemed to hit somewhere slightly north of the natural waistline anyway, so I decided to leave it be this time. Although it was a year ago, I remember really enjoying the construction of this dress. That's largely because my fabric behaved so nicely, but I can only conclude that the instructions must also have been clear and logical. 

Fabric:

An embarrassingly long time ago, I was offered a voucher code to try out the fabric printing service offered by Cotton Bee. Thanks so much for them for their generosity. I apologise if this is inaccurate, but from what I understand, Cotton Bee offer the same type of fabric print-on-demand service and products as Spoonflower, but are based in Poland. Which was a real benefit for UK-based sewers before Spoonflower opened a new branch that ships out of Germany. I haven't made any comparisons between prices or details of service and products, but I can say that ordering through the Cotton Bee site was easy and very fun. I managed to make my voucher stretch to two lengths of fabric, the other one being this amazing hand print interlock that became a TATB Freya top.   

Both the fabrics I ordered from Cotton Bee used prints by the same designer. I've since been on the site and was unable to access the function that allowed me to look through all the work of a specific designer, which may well be my fault, so I'm afraid I can't link to her collections in this post. I was obsessed with most of it though. I chose this jewels and gem stones print because of the gorgeous colours. The site allows you to monkey with the scale of the print, so I tried to replicate a kind of ditsy, Liberty-esque design in which the jewels wouldn't be completely noticeable unless you were up close. 

Thoughts:

I went for the cotton lawn type base cloth and it is gorgeous quality. I think is the one they call cretonne, but I'd advise you to order a swatch book before you place any orders to be sure you're getting what you want. Anyways, it's not quite tana lawn-level amazing, but easily as good as basically any other cotton lawn I've encountered. I took a long time to pull the trigger with this fabric and cut into it for this project. I love it so much but, for a couple of reasons, in the end I'm not convinced I made the best choice of use for this fabric.

Firstly, I just don't know that this dress generally suits or fits me that well. I guess the suiting-me bit is entirely subjective, and to be honest I'm not sure what I would tweak to improve the fit. Secondly, and more specifically, I don't think the busy, ditsy print works very well with that cut out neckline. Or maybe it's that the base colour doesn't offer sufficient contrast with my skin tone. Either way, a bolder, solid colour would have packed more of a punch to help the cut out detail really shine. 

But as I say, I have ended up wearing this dress a lot this summer and it does feel lovely to wear, so it wouldn't make sense at this point to dissect it. I do have just under a metre left of this fabric. Enough to squeeze a Scout tee, or some kind of woven tank. What would you think I should make from the remainder? Enquiring minds need to know....

Pauline Dress Perfection

Despite being a very active and fearless little girl, my daughter likes to wear dresses or skirts whenever it's an option, and the girlier the better. Ever since I compiled the blog posts listing heaps of independent children's pattern companies, I've been keeping an eye on the output of Elegance & Elephants. I think most of the patterns hit the sweet spot between 'classic' and 'modern', with a decent dose of 'girly' if that's what you're looking for. Until recently, the free Retro Sweatpants pattern was the only one of theirs that I'd actually made, then they released the Pauline dress/tunic pattern. You know me, I've got a weakness for ruffles, plus I felt confident that it was generally a style that Dolores could also get behind. So when the pattern's release was shortly followed by a handily timed sale, I splashed the paypal-cash quicker than you can blink.  

Pattern:

The Pauline dress is an A-line shaped garment with a nicely-proportioned, rounded yoke and ruffle detail. There is some gathering at the centre front and centre back where the lower sections are joined to the yoke. This gathering adds a bit more fullness and volume, making this woven garment very easy to wear and move around in. Most of the versions pictured on the site, including the pattern testers' versions, are sleeveless, but there is also a sleeve pattern piece included for long or three-quarter sleeves.

Dolores is presently a couple of months away from her fifth birthday, so I made the size 5 but the size 6 length. I'm pleased to report that it fits her well at the moment, but should see her through next summer as well. 

(image source: Elegance & Elephants)

In general, the construction was fun and the steps were explained well, with clear photos for each. However, there were two bits that I didn't love that I would probably change for future versions. The first concerns the back neck fastening. I was surprised to find that the back yoke and facing are cut on the fold. A small piece of elastic forms a button loop, and ends up being inserted at the edge of the key hole/slit. To be honest, I couldn't really visualise how it was going to work, but I bumbled along ok. The key hole/slit is created by stitching a very tight V shape that you then are meant to snip into and turn the whole through with the right side facing out. I found the instructions for how not to get the elastic caught up in the V stitching were a bit lacking. As for the V shaped stitching and turning through, I have no idea how the samples on their website look so neat, because I definitely couldn't! I ended up stitching a narrow rectangle that could be snipped into more easily, and the result looks pretty good. 

The second part I didn't like was related to the facing. The instructions for the sleeveless version have you stitching the facing to the armhole by encasing the whole top part of the garment and turning though. It's not a method I have used before, and the instructions includes a handy link to a more detailed Youtube video tutorial (which you can see here). Here's the rub: once complete, I found the facing ended up too large and peeped out through the neck hole. I fixed the issue later by stitching-in-the-ditch through the ruffle seam. I'm not blaming the method used for attaching the facing, and in fact it was fun to try something new, however I think trying this less-known-to-me method meant I wasn't able to spot a potential problem until it was too late. It's possible that the facing wouldn't be too large or peek out if I simply pressed rather than understitched-then-pressed the neckline, which creates a neat neck hole but essentially pushes the facing further inside. In the future, I would trim the facing away at the armholes by about .75cm before applying it to the outer garment. 

Fabric:

Let it be known, this is NOT the fabric I would have chosen if I had given myself free rein. However, Dolores has made it clear a number of times how much she likes this ditsy floral cotton lawn, which has been lurking in my stash for about six years. It's the same fabric I used to line these bubble shorts and there's still over 1m left, so you'll probably see it again at some point. It's a kind of faux-Liberty print and is really nice to work with, and most likely very pleasant to wear in the heat wave we've been having of late. 

I have found in the past that details, particularly gathering, can get really lost in a small, dense print like this. Therefore, I picked some contrast white fabric that was residing in my scraps tub for the ruffle instead.  

Thoughts: 

Although I wouldn't have chosen this fabric, it is undeniably pretty and I think she looks lovely in this dress. It's been a winner so far and she wore it a couple of times on our recently holiday to France. I'm excited to make more versions of this pattern; next up will hopefully be an autumn blouse using the tunic length with long sleeves. I'll definitely be trimming the facing piece down a touch. The lawn worked really well, but I'd like to try it in lighter and slightly heavier (but drapey) weight fabrics. What type of fabric would you try making this dress in?