Kalle is sharing a dress she recently made that features some really great statement sleeves! Read through to hear about her fitting process and the adjustments she made to this pattern.
Maker: Kalle
Pattern Used: Mindy Dress from Fibre Mood
Fabric Used: Peppered Cotton in the color Cinnamon Pink. We love this fabric for its softness and two-tone chambray weave.
Did you make a muslin? Yes, I did muslin, and I am really glad that I did a test garment for several reasons. First of all, I wanted the bodice to be a bit more fitted than it is designed. Second, the construction method was new to me, and was pretty confusing where the sleeves attach to the bodice. Additionally, the pattern does not include seam allowances, and when tracing I added them. I made several errors (the seam allowance is not consistent for all pieces/seams), and so on my first muslin, several pieces didn’t line up.
Did you make any alterations to the pattern? I modified the front bodice pretty extensively. I wanted it to be more fitted, as I find styles that hang away from the body under the bust tend to feel “maternity“ on me. After trying on the initial muslin, it was clear that the bust area was too small. I attempted to do a FBA, but the dart ended up comically large. I tried splitting the uptake in to two smaller darts, but I did not like the look of that at all.
Back to the drawing (drafting?) board, it occurred to me that princess seams would likely give me the shaping I wanted, and a look i could live with. After consulting Cashmerette’s blog, I found a great tutorial for converting a dart to princess seams, and it worked! After a few minor tweaks (and a few more muslins) I’m pleased with the result. I also swapped the elastic at the bottom of the sleeves for gathers and banded them.
Did you learn any new techniques/skills? Yes – I learned to convert darts to princess seams, and I got a lot of practice seam ripping!
Do you have any tips for construction? I found working through the muslins to be really helpful. The sleeve/band area was really tricky for me – I also can’t stress the importance of marking the dots clearly! I used tailor’s tacks on my final dress, and they came in really handy.
If you were leaving the fit a bit looser, as the pattern was originally designed, I don’t think you’d need to install a zipper at all.
I added bra strap holders – a little thread chain attached to snaps, to help keep the sleeves up on my shoulders. I followed this tutorial from Itch to Stitch, and it was very helpful. And of course I stitched in a label from Kylie and the Machine!
What did you like or dislike about the pattern/fabric? Once I worked through all of the fit and design issues for this pattern, the dress actually came together pretty quickly. There’s a lot of gathering, but I rather enjoy that, especially now that I’ve learned this new method.
However, I do regret not adding pockets! It would have been nice for the pattern to include them.
I found the instructions to be lacking, but I’m not sure if that’s due to the language/translation hurdle, or if generally Fibre Mood doesn’t have great instructions. This is my first time sewing up a pattern from them (and frankly, probably my last), so I can’t speak to their instructions or drafting aside from for the Mindy Dress. However, on this pattern, it seems to me that the side seam for the front bodice isn’t drafted very well – the dart doesn’t make a nice, straight line for the side seam when folded.
I loved working with this fabric. The most difficult part was choosing which color to use…they are all so pretty!
Stitch Samples is a blog series that gives you a closer look at the samples made by members of our shop gang.
Where can I locate patterns please
Hi! The link to the pattern is in this post, or you can search the Fibre Mood site to find the pattern.