Daughters of Style Claire dress
My first bit of sewing for 2019! I’d lost my sewing motivation a bit as I am also knitting a jumper, so when I saw some pattern testing come up for this dress I signed up to try and get me back into it. It’s the Claire dress by Daughters of Style and I love it!
In the end I actually missed the deadline for the testing, I just finished it the day after the pattern was actually released. But close!
It’s a really unusual construction, the pattern pieces look a bit wonky, but actually everything first perfectly. There are lots of notches and they all matched up for me, which is unusual as I am not the tidiest cutter outer.
I did get myself into a bit of a spin about the size, there was no body measurements included in the testing instructions, only finished garment measurements, and I dithered for ages about what size to make.
I eventually settled on an M top and an L bottom. Then just as I was about to start cutting I realised that my 3 inch test square was not in fact 3 inches wide but 2.9. I’m not sure what exactly happened, I did have some problems with the pdf (one page was randomly smaller than all the others), or it might have been I did something wrong with my printer settings. In any case, I decided I couldn’t be brothered to start from scratch, so went for the XL bottom and L top and hoped for the best. Obviously this won’t translate into sizing advice for the actual pattern, printed correctly!
I’m pretty happy with the size anyway, though looking at the photos from the back, I think it could maybe do with a tiny bit more round the bum, and with a smaller size up top. I’m going to make another version and I’ll definitely go down to the M on the top and I may try to add some width round the hips. But maybe not, I’m lazy!
The fabric I used is some cotton I bought in Leicester at Christmas to line a jacket with. It was one of the few long lengths of fabric I had! It’s actually slightly ruined as I washed it with some other fabric and there are some faint navy splodges from that otrher fabric running. It’s also very easy to crease, so I’m definitely putting this down as a wearable toile. For my second version I’ve bought some double gauze which will be lovely!
