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The Candy Confetti Chiffon Hope Dress


The Minerva Exclusive Sheer Chiffon Fabric in Candy Confetti has a silver stripe running through it which gives it this subtle sparkle that was a delightful find. The print is so colourful and fun, and the fabric just has such a beautiful drape to it and from the moment it arrived I was so thrilled I had chosen it.


I have been trying makes recently that push me outside of my comfort zone to try and expand the types of silhouettes that I wear and to try out new garment types. I have made the Style Arc Hope Dress (with the extension pattern bodice and sleeve) before and love the volume in it and the way the bodice sits. With this fabric though, due to its sheer quality, it would be worn over other pieces, so I decided that I wanted to add even more volume still to make it even more of a statement, so I came up with the idea of putting a tiered gathered skirt on. Now this is an easy adaptation to make so I’ll take you through how I did it.


The bodice I have used for this dress is from the extension pattern of the Hope Dress and has this lovely slash and tie detail on the front of the bodice which I think is really flattering on my busty frame. I then used the largest sleeve in the extension pack, that then pulls in with elastic just below the elbow. I disregarded the skirt pattern entirely and instead used the width of the fabric as my baseline to create the rectangles for the tiered sections. Please bear in mind that these are the widths I used on my (according to the style arc size chart) size 18 frame so if you are smaller, you’ll get more gathers in the first tier and if you are larger than this less.

I used 1 width of fabric on the 1st tier and made it 40cm tall. The 2nd tier I used 2 widths of fabric and made this 30cm tall. The 3rd tier (which is more of a frill) I cut 4 widths of fabric at 15cm tall.


When constructing this dress, I followed the instructions for the bodice and sleeves first so that this was fully sewn up before making the tiers. The first tier I sewed the selvedges together (right sides together) to create a circle, ran a gather stitch across the top and adjusted to fit to the bottom edge of the bodice. I then repeated this process for the other 2 tiers, each time sewing however many pieces together so that it was a big circular piece before gathering each to fit into the bottom of the previous section.


Now because of the sheer nature of this fabric I toyed with using French seams when constructing because I knew the seams would be visible, but this is very hard to do cleanly when it comes to gathered sections because it quickly becomes very bulky so decided I would overlock (throughout for consistency) instead. Being chiffon this fabric frays easily so some type of seam finishing is definitely needed, I found overlocking worked like a dream and really isn’t that noticeable when being worn but I’m sure zigzag stitch in the seam allowance would work much the same if overlocking isn’t an option for you, or if the garment construction suits it French seams would be a beautiful option.


Now possibly controversially given it’s a sheer fabric; I added pockets to this. I am basically refusing to make anything now that doesn’t have pockets as I believe pockets are a necessity in life. I decided that the gathered sections would disguise them slightly but that I actually didn’t mind if they were visible, it felt like it made a nice statement to have them there. I just inserted them as inseam pockets into the side seams of the first tier.


I have found this dress difficult to capture in photographs, because it’s this interesting thing where even though it’s totally sheer it doesn’t seem to look it. I need to experiment with other colours underneath to see how this changes it as I paired this with a black leggings/top combo for simplicity. I think come spring this will be fun over a shorter black dress or maybe even shorts with a crop top. It does feel like I have a lot of options of things I can pair this with, I mean it would even work as a beach coverup for over a swimsuit.


I wore this dress to my niece’s naming ceremony over the weekend and had so many complements on it with people somewhat mind boggled that it was something I had made. It’s fun without being super in your face and easy to wear in that it didn’t feel super dressy but didn’t feel casual either, the perfect piece for when you’re not sure of the dress code.


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#shownseated



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