5 years ago
A Summer Sudley Dress.
It's that time of year where any plans I set, kind of go out the window as I sew as many dresses as I can. The Megan Neilson Sudley Dress fits the bill perfectly whilst using the lovely mint Rose & Hubble cotton poplin.
Because of the better weather coming (finally) in, I've been seeing a flurry of dresses being made and when I had the latest list of fabrics for the #minervabrandambassador blog opportunities this one caught my attention so I was thrilled to have it gifted to me in return for this blog.
To be honest, I had a tough decision of what dress I wanted to make with this fabric. It was washed and ironed speedily but lay on my shelf whilst I deliberated over which pattern I wanted to use.
This mint is one of my favourite colours ... it does something weird with my eyes, which you can sometimes catch in photos. The base of this fabric is mint with tiny little pink and white flowers with a black line and a green stem. It is a ditsy cute print and I wasn't sure if this was going to be "too young" for me when I received it.
The actual cotton is soft - which is no surprise since it's a Rose and Hubble fabric. I'm always amazed at how well it washed and irons.
Now, this Sudley Dress is slightly different and let me explain why ...
The gathering on the skirt has been the most evenly spaced gathering I have ever done which I'm putting down to the cotton and the ease of using such fabric.
Next up, are the sleeves. I've gone for the standard length of the pattern piece which stops at my elbow. Instead of just doing a standard hem, I've folded it in and stitched it, leaving a 2cm depth and then turning it outwards to create a cuff and using the stitch line where I hemmed it, stitched it in place.
And finally, I added a peter pan collar. If you've followed me on Instagram, I've omitted the collar on my other 3 Sudley Dresses. It wasn't until testing the Bakerloo by Nina Lee I fell in love with collars, and you know that the Bakerloo collar is no small statement! So going back to a small collar ain't too bad.
The insides of this Sudley aren't bland as I've used a cute Paige Joanna label at the back on the neckline and some lovely bias binding from The Specky Seamstress as per instructions.
The Sudley Dress comes into different size ranges, 0-20 is available in both paper and PDF options whereas the curve range, 14-30 is only available in PDF format.
For all of my Sudley's, I've used the paper version and graded it up. According to the measurements, there should more ease, especially on the bodice, but I don't mind the fitted bodice, even I added about 2 inches to the side seams on the front and back bodices. The skirt is a lot easier to grade up as it's a simple rectangle almost, so I use the whole width of the fabric. Before I go on further, I do stress that I no longer buy patterns that aren't in my size to grade up significantly. I bought this pattern before the sudley was expanding the sizing and I was getting impatient and then I saw a sample in a Kokka cotton/linen mix at Raystitch and that broke me!
It's a summery dress for sure and I'm going to be careful I don't get dinner stains on it, now that will be challenging!
It's that time of year where any plans I set, kind of go out the window as I sew as many dresses as I can. The Megan Neilson Sudley Dress fits the bill perfectly whilst using the lovely mint Rose & Hubble cotton poplin.
Because of the better weather coming (finally) in, I've been seeing a flurry of dresses being made and when I had the latest list of fabrics for the #minervabrandambassador blog opportunities this one caught my attention so I was thrilled to have it gifted to me in return for this blog.
To be honest, I had a tough decision of what dress I wanted to make with this fabric. It was washed and ironed speedily but lay on my shelf whilst I deliberated over which pattern I wanted to use.
This mint is one of my favourite colours ... it does something weird with my eyes, which you can sometimes catch in photos. The base of this fabric is mint with tiny little pink and white flowers with a black line and a green stem. It is a ditsy cute print and I wasn't sure if this was going to be "too young" for me when I received it.
The actual cotton is soft - which is no surprise since it's a Rose and Hubble fabric. I'm always amazed at how well it washed and irons.
Now, this Sudley Dress is slightly different and let me explain why ...
The gathering on the skirt has been the most evenly spaced gathering I have ever done which I'm putting down to the cotton and the ease of using such fabric.
Next up, are the sleeves. I've gone for the standard length of the pattern piece which stops at my elbow. Instead of just doing a standard hem, I've folded it in and stitched it, leaving a 2cm depth and then turning it outwards to create a cuff and using the stitch line where I hemmed it, stitched it in place.
And finally, I added a peter pan collar. If you've followed me on Instagram, I've omitted the collar on my other 3 Sudley Dresses. It wasn't until testing the Bakerloo by Nina Lee I fell in love with collars, and you know that the Bakerloo collar is no small statement! So going back to a small collar ain't too bad.
The insides of this Sudley aren't bland as I've used a cute Paige Joanna label at the back on the neckline and some lovely bias binding from The Specky Seamstress as per instructions.
The Sudley Dress comes into different size ranges, 0-20 is available in both paper and PDF options whereas the curve range, 14-30 is only available in PDF format.
For all of my Sudley's, I've used the paper version and graded it up. According to the measurements, there should more ease, especially on the bodice, but I don't mind the fitted bodice, even I added about 2 inches to the side seams on the front and back bodices. The skirt is a lot easier to grade up as it's a simple rectangle almost, so I use the whole width of the fabric. Before I go on further, I do stress that I no longer buy patterns that aren't in my size to grade up significantly. I bought this pattern before the sudley was expanding the sizing and I was getting impatient and then I saw a sample in a Kokka cotton/linen mix at Raystitch and that broke me!
It's a summery dress for sure and I'm going to be careful I don't get dinner stains on it, now that will be challenging!
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