Hi everyone,
Sorry I’ve been missing for a while, I’m extremely busy at the minute and when me and hubby have been stripping walls and garden sorting, I can’t bring myself to replace my scruffs for my lovely new makes and insist he takes photos!!!
The Appleton dress was made for me by the lovely Lhizz from New Zealand last year as part of the hand-made dress swap. As she didn’t feel the pattern would suit her, she kindly sent the pattern with the dress she had made and I have made it since for my sister’s baby shower last year.
As the pattern is tailored for curvy, chestier girls, I couldn’t leave it there as I feel it had a great fit and it’s super flattering. I have seen a few people hack the dress in to the a maxi, so I decide to do the same thing. I was also inspired by the Sew Together for Summer wrap dress challenge, which is always great for inspiration!
From making it before I know that it uses a lot of fabric and, in a very unlike me move, I decided that patterned fabric would be too much in a real shoulder to toe dress so I chose a plain, purple jersey for this make. My inner pattern lover struggled with this decision!!
The construction of the dress is a real joy (usually) – for some reason, I had lots of problems with this, the jersey is super stretchy (though I have worked with the same make before) and it just seemed that if it could pucker or snap or anything else to go wrong then it did. This was increased by the fact that there was so much fabric and it actually made it a bit more difficult to work with on the whole.
Anyway, due to my absolute frustration with this dress, I expected to get it on and hate it because it wasn’t really a pleasure to make in the end. However… I absolutely love it. This amazing pattern has done it again, I think it fits a treat (no gaping at all across the chest, which means no strategic safety pin!) and it is super flattering. I would really recommend this pattern for anyone who has a large pair of boobs to accommodate and for anyone who wants to up their jersey making game but still doesn’t want to deal with buttonholes or fastenings.
I’m not sure I can get away with another, but I’m thinking of making a sleeveless one (in a brighter print) for over my swimsuit – what do you think? Would that work?
