So I have finally made up a long-time favourite in the indie pattern world: the Inari Tee Dress by Named Patterns.

This make wasn’t in my sewing queue.

Inari wasn’t even on my sewing radar.

In truth, I must confess that I had been doing quite a lot of instant gratification sewing recently. I was actually planning to get stuck into something more substantial. Something that really justified being called sewing.

Then, the week that I made this was just a bad week. I spent an evening in the emergency room with my 2 year old, having his faced stitched up after a little accident. With the doctor repeatedly telling me that he would have permanent facial scarring. So while he is all ok, it was a bit of a downer in our household.

So, sometimes, instant gratification sewing is the most I can handle. This is what I meant about us sewing mamas needing to be kind to ourselves in my recent #easeintomotherhood post.

Fabric addiction!

This Inari Tee Dress was also born out of a complete fabric crush.

I recently spotted this knit fabric from Art Gallery Fabrics.

When I say spotted, I mean blatantly copied, after I saw someone else using it on Instagram – thanks Helen at Valentine and Stitch!

It’s called “Paparounes Crimson” and is part of the Skopelos collection, designed by Katerina Roccella. When I saw it, I desperately hunted down a stockist in Europe because screw paying import charges!  Turned out this was not so easy because many stockists only had small amounts remaining. In the end, I was helped by the lovely Harriet from Karelia House Fabrics in the UK, who was kind enough to process a manual order so that it could be shipped to me outside the UK.

Yeah for fabric sellers who understand what it means when we just NEED to have a fabric in our stash.

The fabric is a very high quality  knit – thick and with good stretch and recovery (95% cotton, 5% elastene). It even smelled like a new T-shirt when it arrived!

Once I had this lovely fabric in my hands, that was supposed to have been enough. I didn’t have any plans to do anything right away. I just wanted to have it for when the right moment came along.

+ Instagram temptation

Then, I saw this blog post from Merrick’s Art. And then, as often happens, I needed to have a dress as close to that one  as possible in this fabric. And by yesterday.

So, I turned to the internet.

I was tossing up between trying the Inari Tee Dress or Seamwork Magazine’s Mesa dress.

In the end, I went with Inari because I thought that the side vents and the general vibe were a bit edgier and more in line with the aesthetic of the dress that had inspired me.

Layered PDF patterns are the BEST!

Turning to the Inari Tee Dress itself, there is a lot I like about working with Named Patterns’ PDFs.

First of all, layered PDFs are the bomb! Why doesn’t every indie pattern designer use this format? Only printing the size (or sizes) you need, makes it soooo much easier to cut.

No more of that, umm, is my size dash-dot? Or was it dot-dash-dot? Grey solid line? Or black solid line?

Urghh, hurts my eyes just thinking about it.

The other thing that I love is that Named Patterns mark the bust, waist and hip line on the pattern. I find this very useful for making adjustments or grading between sizes.

The other huge plus is that I love a pattern which can be made up in both a woven and a knit. Both this and the only other Named Pattern I have made up (so far!), the Kielo wrap dress, do this and I think it is fantastic!

Fitting my Inari Tee Dress

Turning to actually making the dress, unfortunately, I didn’t quite get the fit right.

According to the size chart, I was a size 40 for bust and waist and a size 38 at the hips. In view of the fact that I was sewing with a knit, I just went with the smaller size. This was a mistake.

I had failed to take into account the fact that my saddle is actually wider then my hips (just like I did with my Bombshell Swimsuit!).

You think I would learn!

In my mind, based on a few photos I’d seen online, I’d imagined the overall ease of the dress as being a little more generous than it actually is. So I hadn’t thought that my slightly wider seat was going to be a problem.

The size 38 turned out to be skin-tight at the upper thighs. This made the boxy shape around the waist and bust, looked pretty ridiculous from the front. So I had to play around to make it more fitted overall.

In reality, I messed with the shape so much that it actually resembles something more similar to Seamwork Mesa, so maybe I should have just gone with that…

Overall, I spent much more time fitting this thing, than I did actually sewing it.

Fitting in a cocoon

I think that part of the reason I had so much difficulty is that the dress has an interesting cocoon shape. When I saw that description on the Named Patterns website, I couldn’t really fully envision what it meant. Put simply, it means that your back piece is significantly bigger than the front piece, so your side seams sweep forward.

It’s actually very flattering and I really love the look this gives the dress from the back, in particular.

But it meant that when I was trying to fit by taking in my side seams, I was messing with the proportions. I was taking fabric evenly from both the front and back whereas ideally, I should have been altering in a manner consistent with the deliberately warped proportions of the dress.

But that was never gonna happen…

In the end, I got it to something that I am happy enough with.

And the fabric is so fabulous that I will feel great wearing it anyway!

Getting the knees out…

It’s also great to use a totally fabulous fabric sometimes when you are sewing something which might play on some of your personal body insecurities. For me, it’s the knees. For this one, since Named Patterns are designed for people taller than me, I decided to take the risk and not lengthen the dress.

This means that there is much more of my knees on show than is usual. But I am so obsessed by looking at my pretty stripes and flowers that I don’t mind at all…

A big hats off to Named Patterns, because I think this is a great pattern and I will definitely make it again. I know that you have all known this for years now, but I am only newly joining the Inari Tee Dress fan club! I am looking forward to going up a size and making it more as it is intended to be made.

Some neckband love

I also want to say that I absolutely love the neckbands drafted by Named Patterns.

Both this one, and the one on my Kielo wrap dress, are my favourite neckbands ever. I don’t know what it is about them (or if I’ve just been lucky with the fabric I was using at the time), but I find Named Patterns’ neck bands so easy to install and so spot-on with fit compared to those in any patterns. Often on other patterns, I feel that the neck band is too loose or the way it is designed to look is too thin or too thick. But this is just perfect!

I am also excited that Named Patterns has released a  free long sleeve and collar add-on for the Inari Tee Dress, so I see these in my future too.

Happy, happy, joy, joy

In the end, this Inari Tess Dress doesn’t exactly follow closely the piece that originally inspired it. It is more resort-wear than urban cool. But it makes me happy and has introduced me to an indie pattern staple that I had not yet turned my hand at.

And I’m sure that, once I actually cut it out in the right size and maybe lengthen it a tad, the Inari Tee Dress will be the super-fast, piece-of-cake sew it is supposed to be!

Plus, in case you have noticed, look how pretty my fabric is …