Here is my version of the Lois Dress by Tessuti Patterns, a new-to-me indie pattern company.

Most of the time when I start on a brand new sewing project, I do so with a sense of cautious optimism. But, every now and then, I start a project with a slightly smug feeling. It goes something like: “as long as I don’t do anything to mess it up, this fabric-pattern combination is going to be the bomb”.

The last time I felt this way was my Penny Dress. Well, I’m pleased to say that, as I suspected, this one is a pretty darn good combination too.

What do you think?

Cross and Woods

As I often like to do – let’s start with fabric. My Lois Dress is made out of a Nani Iro super soft and light (but fully opaque) cotton with a slight sateen finish. I bought it from Cross and Woods, but I think they’re out of stock now.

A quick shout out here to Cross and Woods Crafting Parlour. It’s such a beautiful, cosy, welcoming place and is basically the only non-online place where I get to feel like “oh, there are other people like me out there”.

I first came to know them as a knitting and crochet store, but they also stock a small but perfectly cultivated selection of fabrics. Nani Iro. Merchant and Mills. Atelier Brunette. Lillestoff. Basically, if I could personally curate a fabric selection, it would pretty much look like theirs! They also sell online too!!

Now back to some Nani Iro

I love this print so much that I have it in another colour way, so you may be seeing it again soon!

But, I did rapidly learn an important lesson about its suitability for the Lois Dress. Like many Japanese fabrics, it is 110cm wide. And I quickly discovered that the front skirt piece of the Lois Dress doesn’t fit on 110cm fabric – it’s too wide. This is even more so on this fabric, which has a plain border of a few centimetres width on either side, thus further reducing usable width for current purposes.

The skirt front of the Lois dress actually wraps around towards the back, where it meets a narrow back panel. So it’s not a traditional skirt piece which finishes at the side seam. In other words, it’s big.

Chanelling Tim Gunn, I had to cut out my front skirt in several pieces and sew them together. Luckily, I think the fabric is bold and busy enough that it’s not that noticeable. And, just in case, I placed those bits at the back. Out of sight, out of mind…

In this way, I just managed to squeeze my Lois Dress out of my two metres of 110cm fabric. But it was tight. Pattern matching or thinking too much about placement was simply not an option. I had to place the pieces where they would fit!

It’s Tessuti Time

This was my first time sewing with one of Tessuti’s patterns. It’s always especially exciting to test out a brand new (to me) indie pattern company, right?

There were a few things that I really liked about the pattern itself. The pattern actually appears hand-drawn, which I found quite charming. Made me feel like I was supporting a real “Mom-and-Pop”  operation! I also liked the fact that my body measurements placed me in a single size – size 12 – which is a very rare occurrence for me. I liked that the pattern uses a 1/2 inch seam allowance, instead of 5/8. I always feel like I work more accurately when sewing with a smaller seam allowance.

The one thing about the pattern itself which I didn’t like is that finished garment measurements were only included for one size (size 10). I tried to extrapolate from this – if the size 10 body measurement is x and the size 10 finished garment measurement is y, the amount of ease must be y-x, but my calculations didn’t seem to work.  I can’t help but wonder whether a complete finished measurement chart might have helped me make better sizing choices.

12

More about my sizing choices later, but while on the topic of sizes, I got completely frustrated with myself while measuring up for this project.

Tessuti, like me, is Australian, and I kind of hate myself a bit for the fact that when I saw that I was a size 12, I actually felt a bit happy. There was a voice in my head that said, well done, that’s ok, not too bad.

One of the things I love about sewing is that sizes don’t actually mean anything. It is about sewing precisely for your body measurements, not for S, M, L, 38, 46, 4, 6, 8 or whatever! These arbitrary numbers don’t mean anything! But this project made me realise that, because I didn’t grow up with European and American sizes, those various numbers don’t mean anything to me. Size 38 or 44 have no emotional attachments or connotations to me.

But when I see Australian sizing, it still takes me back to the obese teenage version of myself who desperately wished she could be a size 12, thinking that life would then be perfect. I find it frustrating (and a little heart-breaking) that despite everything I now know and believe, these ridiculous arbitrary numbers still hold some kind of pyschological sway over me.

It’s a testament to how aggressively and deeply women’s body perception are shaped from a young age. And while, frankly, I hope that “Home Economics”  is no longer taught in schools, because it’s BS that teaches predominantly girls that their life’s destiny could only possibly be in the home, if it is still taught, I hope it is being done in a way that actually inspires a passion for fashion and sewing. Because maybe if I had embraced sewing in my adolescent version, I could have appreciated the arbitrariness of these numbers before they’d had a chance to take hold somewhere inside of me.

OK, rant over, back to the lovely Lois Dress!

Sewing up my Lois Dress

The description of the Lois Dress says it is for intermediate and super-advanced sewists. While it definitely isn’t a beginner pattern, it’s really not that difficult. The fact that Tessuti even uses the description ” super-advanced” kind of made me chuckle. I’ve sewn coats and jeans, but I would never describe myself as “super-advanced”.

But maybe that’s cuz us ladies are conditioned to play down our achievements and capacities.

Damn the bloody patriarchy!!!!

The Lois Dress uses a couple of clever techniques. As noted above, the front skirt piece extends all the way around to the back, which gives it a lovely shape and drape. It is shaped over the hips through the use of darts. Also, the side zip is tucked inside a dart, which is a little bit fancy!

Onto the more mundane details, the Lois Dress calls for the use of tear-away Vilene shields, which I’ve never seen before. I just used a lightweight fusible interfacing to stabilise (which I obviously didn’t tear away).

The Lois Dress pattern uses a technique for the darts that I had previously never come across but now I’ve recently seen it in two patterns. Instead of just sewing the dart by marking the triangular shape of the dart onto your pattern piece and sewing the dart legs together, you actually cut a triangular shaped piece out of the fabric and then sew the edges together, with a given seam allowance. My Hemisferic Coat used this technique and I’d assumed it was about reducing bulk in heavy fabrics.

But now I see it can be used with lightweight fabrcs too. I actually quite like it. I am a pretty lazy sewist, prone to inaccuracy. One of the things I dislike most about pattern prep is transferring pattern markings. Cutting out the triangular dart, as part of the pattern piece, seems more accurate than trying to carefully transfer dart markings.

What do you think?

I also really enjoyed the technique for finishing the neckline and think it looks rather professional. And, is it just me, or is there nothing better than working with self bias strips of your fabric? All that beautiful squishy elasticy goodness that you can manipulate to do all kinds of magical things.

Gets my sewing juices flowing…

Trying the Lois Dress on for size

When I was reading about the Lois Dress, I saw a couple of bloggers saying that it sewed up on the big side. But since it was my first time with Tessuti patterns and there was no complete finished measurement chart, I didn’t feel confident making assumptions. So I stuck exactly with my size according to my body measurements.

I have to say, that the end product was way too big. It felt and looked more like a caftan than the classy summer dress I’d had in mind. Since the skirt of the Lois Dress extends all the way around to the back and has no side seam, it wasn’t immediately apparent how best to approach taking it in.

I started by extending the width and length of the skirt hip darts (these join the seam seam of the bodice and therefore act as something like a partial side seam). But I could only do this on one side because on the other side, I still had a zip to insert. I couldn’t quite envisage exactly how the zip insertion and the sewing up of the final dart would all go down, which left me slightly bamboozled as to the best way to take the dress in the right amount at the zipper side without needing to guess first and unpick later.

There is nothing I hate more than the prospect of having to unpick a zip! Who’s with me?

Surfboard Power!

So, as I’m prone to do, I cheated!

I realised, as I was desperately trying on and pinning, that, thanks to the combination of a plunging neckline and my diminutive A-cups, that I could get the Lois Dress on over the top of my head, without any closure. This instantly solved all my issues. I decided not to install a zipper at all. This enabled me to just take in the bodice side seam and lengthen and widen my hip darts until I was satisfied with the size.

Isn’t it a great moment when you realise ” yes, I don’t need that zip after all, that means I’m almost finished…”?

In the end, I took in a couple of centimetres at the bodice side seams and my hip darts extend about 10cm further down than those on the pattern pieces, and are about an inch wider than designed.

Even after these changes, the dress felt like it didn’t have the waist definition that I had been expecting at the back. So I ended up putting a diamond shaped dart in the centre back. If you look too closely, it ain’t the prettiest thing, but it makes me so much happer with the overall shape of the dress.

So, my lesson learned from the Lois Dress is definitely to size down. The next time I sew this, I will go down by two sizes as my starting point (see, I told you at the start that those numbers were arbitrary and meaningless…)

Lois Lovin’

Despite some sizing issues, I enjoyed this project and the above issues were pretty easy to resolve. So I just wanted to finish up by setting out a few things I completely love about the Lois Dress pattern. And explain why it has gone straight on my ” make again”  list.

First, I think that there is simply no better summer combination than Kimono sleeves + cuffs. This combination is just an all time fav – see my Kalle shirt for more proof. I feel that the Lois Dress sleeves just look tops, if I do say so myself!

Also, I have seen some people online asking about whether the v-neck of the Lois Dress is too low. Since I am non-endowed in the bust department, I’ve always quite liked plunging necklines as giving an impression that perhaps something is happening in that department, without, for me, really imposing any practical scaffolding issues. Whilst this wouldn’t be the dress that I would wear to, I don’t know, dig a channel or perform any other activity involving repeated bending over, for my purposes, it is fine. I really don’t mind the slight risk of the very occassional glimpse of the bridge of a bra.

Finally, probably my favourite overall thing about the Lois Dress, is that it uses a minimal amount of fabric to great effect. It looks flowy and drapey and effortless. It’s a genuine midi length. Yet it only uses 2 metres of fabric! I can’t really think of any other dresses using such little fabric, with this length and level of drapey-goodness.

For me, this makes it an ideal canvas for showcasing a special (read: expensive) fabric. Hint: that’s exactly what I’m planning on doing for my next Lois Dress!

 

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here.