My latest make is the Orsola dress and skirt, the newest pattern release from the lovely ladies at By Hand London.

I recently caved to the forces of the modern world by joining Instagram. I must say, it has wreaked havoc on both my sewing queue and my sewing budget!

This Orsola dress is a case in point.

Thanks to Instagram, I am now aware of new patterns and fabric releases much earlier. When I see a new pattern like Orsola, there is a high risk that she will catapult herself to the top of my carefully planned to-sew list

The Orsola basics

I made my Orsola in a navy tencel that I had originally bought for a completely different dress. Orsola is not only a queue-jumper but a fabric-thief!

What a criminal dress!!

Until I bought this fabric, my only recollection of tencel was the denim variety of the early 90s (I promise you, the denim tencel shirt I had when I was 13 was soo cool!). In fact, I felt a little blah about this fabric when it first arrived (the risk of online fabric shopping, right?). It looked a little flat and reminded me of lining fabric. Once I started to work with it, however, the beautiful drape won me over.

I’m also pleased to inform you that although the pattern calls for 2.8 metres + 0.9 metres in lining, all I had was 2.2 metres of this fabric (about 60″ wide). However, that was enough! Even self-lining, I managed to fit everything in 2.2 metres. Victory for fabric scroungers everywhere!

In case you need any lay out tips, this is how I did it:

The key was lining up the part where I cut the bodice to create two folds, so that I could cut out both the bodice itself and its lining on the fold.

Oh and FYI, this dress is a US size 8, graded to a size 10 at the waist.

Plain Jane

I was a little undecided on this fabric choice because I almost never sew in solids. After racking my brains, I could think of only one other sewing project that I have ever made in a plain fabric. However, that was a fuchsia linen which was so bright, it seems pretty unfair to call it plain.

But there was something about the Orsola dress which seemed to be screaming for a solid. In the examples on the By Hand London website, I was drawn to the solid pale blue version. I felt like the beautiful curves of the back of the dress were highlighted by a solid in a way that might get lost with a printed fabric. So I broke out of my usual mode and keep it simple.

PDF is AOK

I also have a confession to make – this Orsola dress is actually my first time ever using a PDF pattern from By Hand London.

I bought most of my By Hand London patterns when I first learned to sew a few years ago, so I have a lovely collection of their now limited edition printed patterns.

It is such a pity that these aren’t being produced anymore because, in my opinion, By Hand London made the most beautifully packaged and presented patterns in the independent sewing world, bar none!

So this was my first By Hand London PDF experience and I have to say that the Orsola dress is really the example of how a PDF pattern should be arranged. It is designed so that there is no need to stick all of your print-at-home pieces together, but is made up of more discrete sections. This should be the standard for all PDF patterns. Perhaps I’m the only one, but by the time I get to the final row of sticking 40 odd pieces of paper together, it is usually impossible to get both reference points on each page to join up.

With this PDF pattern, there is none of that. I think that the largest number of pieces which had to be stuck together was 9 or so for the skirt front of Orsola.

In other words, this is about as painless as it is possible for a PDF pattern to get. Although that’s not to say that it still isn’t a form of minor torture in its own way…  Ahh the price we pay for instant gratification and avoiding shipping costs!

Having said that, there was one small thing which I found slightly annoying in this pattern. There were a few places where the sizes of the dart tips were not marked.

Of course, it’s not very hard to follow the line and figure out which tip is yours, but it would have been easier to mark them (or at least some of them), as is done elsewhere in the pattern. Sometimes it’s the end of a very long day before I have a few minutes for selfish sewing, so the less brain power I am required to exercise – the better!

It’s smooth sewing from here folks…

As for the actual sewing , everything went smoothly and my Orsola dress came together satisfyingly quickly.

The initial steps of the Orsola dress require a lot of stay stitching (all those curves!). It’s kind of horrible when you just want to get stuck into a project, but, I guess, a necessary evil. There are also a lot of darts, but that’s part of what gives the dress it’s lovely shape, so I certainly can’t begrudge it that.

Once you’ve powered through your stay stitching and darts, sewing the rest of Orsola comes together very fast.

The thing that felt a bit strange when sewing the Orsola dress is that the very last thing to be constructed is the waist band. Waistband = Finished just somehow didn’t compute in my sewing brain. I was like, oh, it’s done already!

I also really like the technique of finishing a hem with a facing. The only other time I have done this before is in the YoYo dress by Papercut Patterns. It feels a little bit like sewing magic when everything comes together just so!

I also should point out that I kind of goofed up the curves on my scalloped hem. My dress ends up looking almost like a straight hem and I want to emphasise that this is entirely a result of human (and not pattern!) error. I was being lazy and used my serger to join the skirt and the facing together, even though it involved significant curves.

So don’t be lazy folks. Sew then serge – at least along curves!!

Well, almost…

The one area of the instructions that I thought could have been explained a little more was sewing the waist band. Once the outer waist band was pinned to the bodice shell and the inner waist band pinned to the bodice lining, as per the instructions, it was unclear to me whether I should sew a single line joining the shell and lining  together or whether I should sew each of the shell and lining to their respective waistbands separately. I went with “sew it all together”, which worked fine, but I’m still not sure if this was the “right” answer.

The other thing is that I would have been lost as to  exactly where I had to stitch when joining my inner and outer waistbands together if it wasn’t for the line marked on the small diagram. On my first read through the instructions, I stupidly missed the importance of this diagram. So pay attention folks!

None of this was particularly complex to figure out and didn’t cause me any problems, but the waistband construction did require just enough thinking that I couldn’t quite forge ahead on auto-pilot.

Or maybe it was all perfectly clear and I was just tired! But no worries, I got there in the end…

I also want to point out that one of my most despised sewing tasks of all time is turning out straps. For this reason alone, I tend to avoid wrap styles. But this step was not at all painful in the Orsola dress. The waistband ties are sufficiently wide and not too long. So, if like me, you have a mortal hatred of turning out straps, don’t let this put you off. Orsola is kind…

 

Quick, it’s an Orsola emergency!

I first became aware of the Orsola pattern just a couple of days before I was leaving for a work trip. It was predicted to be hot (by European standards) and I didn’t have a lot in my wardrobe that was both weather and work appropriate. I suddenly saw Orsola and contemplated sewing it in two evenings before the trip because it would have been just perfect!

In the end, I decided not to put myself under pressure (plus I felt too guilty – if I was abandoning my family for the trip, I couldn’t very well abandon them to sewing a couple of nights in advance!). I have enough deadlines everywhere else in my life and sewing is about escaping them.

But I really was sorely tempted to try to crack this out in a night or two.

What’s your approach – do you ever sew on a deadline for specific events?

Designers gonna design

Orsola was a fun sew and I am really happy with the result. I’ve worn it to work already and I really feel like I am playing grown-up in it!

The Orsola dress got me thinking about how much respect I have for the work of indie pattern designers. In essence, this pattern is extremely simple but its shapes and lines combine perfectly to make a statement.

Even the entire concept of Orsola, is basic but beguiling. Flipping an “ordinary” wrap dress around so that the “flap” of the skirt is at the back instead of the front seems mundane but is actually genius. When you are wearing a wrap dress or skirt, the simple act of sitting down can become a high risk moves in terms of wardrobe malfunction. Moving the “wrap” to the back of the dress removes this risk entirely. No peek-a-boo risk when you are sitting on your skirt!

And for those who are particularly worried about this factor, so far I have had no problems at all with any peek-a-boo in this dress. And I didn’t even bother to add any snaps for extra security. I’ve even ridden my bike in my Orsola dress without any flashing.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s hat’s off to the ladies at By Hand London for yet another beautiful pattern. The Orsola dress is simple, but clever, beautiful and well-balanced – a pleasure to both wear and sew!