Today I’ve got the I am Irma shirt dress by I AM pattern. Because, you know, sometimes 11 shirt dresses in your closet isn’t cutting it and you just need another!

Irma comes with either shirt or shirt dress variations and a choice of a more traditional shirt sleeve and a bishop sleeve. I’ve gone for the latter here. It is a very roomy design and the dress version includes a dramatic high-low hem.

Using the pattern

In a recent blog post about my I am Merlin Coat, I did set out a few issues I had with the I AM paper patterns – namely that they come printed overlapped so you can’t simply cut them out and that the paper version only goes up to a size 46. The PDFs do go up higher.

I have another little bug-bear to add – this pattern didn’t include any lengthen or shorten here lines. Of course, this is the kind of thing one can figure out for oneself, but I must say I do simply prefer my indie patterns to be as user-friendly as possible.

Beyond these small quibbles, however, I found using the Irma Shirt dress pattern pretty straightforward. I can’t say I followed the instructions very closely as I’ve made quite a few shirts in my time, but I did glance at them and didn’t see any problems.

My I AM Irma Shirt Dress

My Irma Shirt Dress is a size 46. According to my body measurements, I was between a 44/46 at bust and 48 at hips and waist. I went with 46 since that was the maximum size available in the paper pattern I had.

Also, the roominess of the design makes it pretty obvious that the bust measurement was the most important.

I would note that I find the finished I am Irma shirt dress to be pretty darn huuuuuuge! Which, I know, of course, is the intended style. But just to warn you, it is really oversized. I should probably have gone down to a 44, but, hey, in for the penny, in for the pound.

Given the huge volume of the Irma Shirt Dress, I would really recommend sticking closely to fabrics which are fairly light and have plenty of drape – viscose/rayon, silk, tencel etc. For example, even as a lover of linen, I wouldn’t want to make this pattern in linen because I feel that for this to work well, the fabric really has to be something that will swish in silent waves around you.

Does that make any sense as a description to anyone other than myself?

Anyway, I made a few tweaks for my version of the I am Irma Shirt Dress.

Having seen a few versions online, I found the front length a tad short for my personal preference so I lengthened it by one inch at the front. For reference, I’m 167cm tall. If I make it again, I’d probably add another inch yet again. There is no need to hold back when the back is so dramatically long – I feel that a slightly longer front creates a bit more balance.

The pattern comes with a hidden button placket, which is actually a feature I usually love.

But I had the perfect coloured Atelier Brunette buttons that I wanted to be a visible feature so I actually simplified my I am Irma to have a regular button placket, rather than a hidden one.

Apart from these, my changes minor cosmetic and practical ones.

I added in-seam pockets. On this one, I made a mistake I’ve done more times than I care to admit. Being too lazy to actually find a pocket pattern piece to use, I decided, “I know what a pocket shape looks like” and free-handed my inseam pockets.

Well, really, I guess I free-scissored it, rather than free-handed it, since I certainty didn’t do anything sensible like at least draw the shape first!

In the end, my inseam pockets kind of resemble a mine shaft. So narrow at the top I can barely reach my hand in, followed by a loooong drop to a little cave where my phone can hang out as I struggle to get my hand down to remove it.

Yeah, not my finest work. But it was worth it to save that 7.5 second it would have taken me to pick an inseam pocket piece of a proper shape from another pattern.

Well done, Beck, your powers of reason prevailed there.

My only excuse here is that, as a human being, I am conditioned to make the same idiotic mistakes over and over again. Perhaps the physical discomfort of my poor pockets can actually help me break the cycle next time I am tempted to free-hand a pocket piece.

In the meantime, lucky I have a five year old around, his small hands will be of great assistance retrieving items from my strangely shaped pockets.

I also added a self-tie belt to my I AM Irma dress. The latter, however, is very thin because I was scraping the bottom of the fabric barrel. I pieced the belt together out of about 4-5 pieces of scrap.

For me, I find the added tie-belt pretty essential. I don’t think I will really wear my I am Irma shirt dress unbelted as I find that it is just too shapeless and I don’t feel good in it. The belt, however, makes a huge difference to how it makes me feel to wear this.

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Onto fabric, this leopard-print viscose came from Pretty Mercerie. I don’t wear a lot of animal print. My first animal print garment ever was the silk skirt I was in the process of sewing back when the first lockdown started in March. I still haven’t had a chance to wear that one because silk skirt does not say “working from home and in barely surviving mode”. Plus I am currently too scared to even try it on as I don’t want my worst fear that it may not actually fit me anymore confirmed!

I prefer to live in blind hope…

Anyway, when I see other people wearing animal print, I feel that it can look very chic. Then when I wear it, I feel that it perhaps looks more cheap than chic!

So the verdict is still a bit out for me. I’m not sure if I can really pull off animal print at all, but, on the whole, I think this particular print is not too “lepoardy” and can just pass as a small-scale print of some sort. So I think it works.

Smooth sailing

I found the I am Irma shirt dress all smooth sailing and experienced no major issues.

I chose to sew my insides with french seams as much as possible which I think is worth considering, especially since the high-low hem means that there may be flashes of side seam visible.

(Yes, I even french-seamed my ridiculously shaped pockets – I was somehow willing to take the time to do that, but not to search for a properly shaped pattern piece!!!)

The only problem I faced was when my collar stand ended up being about an inch too small for my neckline. I didn’t bother measuring the pattern pieces to check but I’m pretty sure this was entirely my own error. It is quite possible that I made a mistake while modifying the button placket to be exposed which impacted the neckline length. Also, this fabric was quite prone to stretching out, so I think the most likely explanation is that my neckline simply stretched out before I got to the collar.

Remember where I mentioned that the tie belt was made out of 4-5 different pieces?

My lack of leftover fabric meant that I did NOT have enough fabric to sew a new collar.

So, I went with the only solution I could think of – slightly gathering my neckline until the collar would fit. This means that, well, there are a few gathers and puckers where the collar stand attaches to the neck but, as long as I don’t pop up my collar, no-one will know it but me.

A detailed print is also pretty merciful at hiding these kinds of things.

So, all in all, I’ll chalk the I am Irma shirt dress up as a win.

There are just enough features in here that I find indelibly pretty. The bishop sleeves are fantastic – they’re probably my favourite part. The high-low hem is dramatic and lovely, especially from the side view. I also like the proportions of the collar.

Plus, I’m always a sucker for something I can twirl in. I guess part of me still channels the spinning twirling little girl within.

And at least she would have been able to put her entire hand into these pockets!

If you want to see more of my sewing adventures, you can find me on Instagram here.