Hello! I’m super excited to share about making the Cinema dress by Liesl and Co with a lovely, lightweight linen fabric from Minerva. I’ve had this project in mind for awhile now (I purchased the pattern five years ago). This project was super satisfying for me to finally make! I’ll be sharing about the making process in this post and the final dress in a second post.

The fabric is really beautiful to enjoy in person. It has a fun slub texture that brings unique, handwoven elements. I loved pairing this pattern with the fabric. The full length, ¾ sleeve version uses a lot of fabric so the pattern really lets it shine. The linen is very lightweight to what I would call a handkerchief linen. Because it’s still linen, the fabric has a slight structure to it as well. I ordered 5m for this project and had 36” left over (but I cut out the sleeves and sleeve cuffs twice when I decided to grade up on the sleeves).

Size:
I thought I’d share how I approached the sizing for my dress, grading across multiple sizes. You could approach grading size in a few different ways of course, this is just the way I approached it.

My dimensions: High Bust - 33”, Full Bust - 36”, Waist - 32.5”, Hips - 40”
Pattern Body Measurements: Bust - 4, Waist - 10, Hips - 10

My pattern sizing
Front Skirt: 4
Back Skirt: 4
Front Side Panel: 4/10
Back Side Panel: 4/10
Front Yoke: 4
Back Yoke:4
Sleeve: 4/6
Sleeve Cuff: 6

The muslin:
I knew with my body dimensions that I needed to do a full bust adjustment. I used the following tutorial with the Oliver and S sew-a-long (Oliver and S is the sister company to the Liesl and Co brand):

https://oliverands.com/community/blog/2014/10/cinemahide-and-seek-dress-sew-along-day-1.html

I loved how easy it was to make this modification on tracing paper. I made an actual fabric muslin to test fit but it was quite fun to save time and start the pattern modifications on the tracing paper.

I tested the muslin with a linen yoke and flannel sleeves, side panels and center panels. Although it was nice to test the fit quickly, I learned that I didn’t like flannel with this pattern for my own preferences. I like drapier fabrics to hang more loosely with the gathering details at the front and back centers. I did like this yoke a lot so I’m planning to take the muslin apart and reuse the linen yoke with a woven rayon fabric in the future.

Initially I thought I would do a front yoke, button modification to my final dress. If you’re interested in this modification, the following are directions from Oliver and S:

https://oliverands.com/community/blog/2015/02/hide-and-seekcinema-dress-front-placket-tutorial.html

After thinking about this for a while, I decided that my favorite element in the dress design is the optional “V” feature in the front yoke. I decided to abandon the button mod but I thought I’d share the idea for reference.

I added a woven interfacing to the front yoke, sleeve cuffs, and pocket welt. With the base fabric being so lightweight, I felt these areas could use more structure.

I added a decorative stitch to the pocket welts, just for fun. I followed the pattern’s suggestion to top stitch the yoke and center front panels along the seams.

I serged each of the seams to finish the inside of the dress. Before I serged a curved edge, I like to first clip into the curve (then serge the edge of the fabric, to finish).