The Partly Sunny Dress

I was given the pattern for this dress via the old burdastyle.com website.































It was a free pattern designed by Grosgrain. I think that was probably back in 2013 when I really started to collect patterns in earnest. I only printed it somewhere around 2015 though so have had this one stashed for around 5 years as a paper pattern in my loft. I put it together earlier in the month when we began Lockdown for Covid-19. Sadly you can only get this direct from Grosgrain now that Burda destroyed their old website. Its called The Partly Sunny Frock because of the cloud shaped collar!


I have had the cartoon fabric in my stash for about 5 years as well. I have several times decided what to make from it and then decided this or that pattern will not work well. I think ths dress does the fabric justice and vice-versa.

The yoke fabric is not really ideal considering its a 4-way / all direction stretch powermesh attached to a 100% cotton non-stretch bodice. I previous made a high low skirt from the same powermesh.

 It kind of works tho I do have a slight pucker at centre front which I cannot get rid of. I think I stretched the fabric whilst sewing. Its not actually puckered in the sewing but just how it lies when worn. I decided to live with it because it was hard to sew this or at least harder than expected. The collar is 100% white cotton from Ikea. Since the cartoons also have clouds it all kind of works together.

Original dress by Grosgrain

I think despite this is not at all my usual style I will actually wear this once the summer arrives because its very much a summer dress and I love it. I am so glad I finally made something from the cartoon fabric and this design is perfect.

 

The original dress says it is a size 6. I think from the pattern its a UK size 6. I am not sure what that makes it in US sizes. It does not matter. I am a size 8-10 in UK sizes so it was going to be too small so I used the Burdastyle course on making patterns bigger to increase the size to what I thought was a size 10. That should give me room for adjustments. I then sewed the darts according to the pattern. Well it was obvious before even construction that was not going to fit so for a while I was a bit upset. Then I decided well it has very large darts so I took out the darts completely on the front and back waist. Then I redid them.

I did this by attaching the front skirt to the front bodice and found CF. The bodice was narrower than the skirt parts so it was the size defining part of what I had cut out. I needed to make everything as big as possible from what I could work out but I had obviously to stay within my maximums as defined by each cut out part.

Then I worked out where the original darts went by using the previous stitching lines on either side of CF and took the skirt in to match the side seams. I did the same at the back. It means my waist darts are now about 1/4 or even less of the original size and this is with already making the pattern larger!



 I kept the bust darts but made them much smaller. I realised the waist seam is higher on me but decided thats OK and I actually quite like it. I do have most of 1m of this left so could have recut some parts if needed but not all the dress. I did not need to. I am aiming for a much less fitted silhouette than Grosgrain's versions because I prefer my dresses with room to move so more like a basic shift dress. I love shift dresses.

I pinned the dress together and tried on and it fitted. At this point I am so relieved I cannot express it. I had been terrified I had just trashed my precious cartoon fabric.

I added the CB invisible zip which is really not very invisible due to the see through yoke but its the right colour and I already owned it and I cannot think what else to use instead. This is a very nice easy sliding zip off an Ebay seller. I used to buy from Jaycotts but the zips kept breaking.  I usually bulk buy in several colours at once even though I have no idea what I am making with them. I buy for the current item I am making and a few extra in random colours. That brings the price down lots. And of course also the postage charges since most Ebay sellers combine shipping on multiple purchases.


The original dress has piping trims but I decided to go for a slightly different look. I added self made bias binding round the armholes to tie in the bodice and stabilize my power mesh yoke.

I was very careful to ensure you cannot see any raw edges here.

I tried the dress on again regularly as I constructed it at each stage. This included pinning when necessary to check it still fitted.

Then I did the collar. I needed to lower the neckline on the mesh yoke by about 2cm which is quite a lot. That could be due to my pattern enlarging skills since I am not at all expert at that. In fact its my first attempt so likely I have caused the neckline to rise a bit?

I first sewed the two collar parts. I top stitched in blue to match the rest of my sewing.  The inside of the dress is all overlocked in white as well.  I should have ironed the 2 collar bits at this point because I am now worried I will melt the power mesh so have not ironed the cotton so its creased.

Anyway it was a bit tricky getting the collar to fit probably because I lowered the neckline and made the neck hole larger. I had to and as you can see its not a wide fit even now but quite tight though not uncomfortable. I did not enlarge the collar itself which is a mistake. There was no way to get the collar to fit. According to Grosgrain's version it joins at front and on either side of the zip at back. Of course I could have recut the collar as a bigger version, but I just hate to waste fabric if I am able to make things work without.




So then I decided to use more bias binding to make a stand collar edge for the whole thing. That allows me to have a small gap at front centre which would really have been difficult to sew perfectly anyway due to the stretchy powermesh and on either side of the back zip I also have a very small gap. The bias tape colar also sort of ties everything together I think.


So the collar is not perfect but I reckon it will work. I pinned everything and it all looked great. But sadly when attaching the collar I managed to sew it so that the right side point (my right that is) is slightly longer than the left pointed bit. It was perfect when pinned so I think I did a slightly longer seam or maybe the powermesh moved?



I think it works though and most people will never notice my mismatched back collar points and I am still very happy with how this has turned out.

I usually wear my hair loose anyway so most people won't even see that.

Oh, and finally I shortened the dress by making a deep hem so its a length I will wear.


















And now I can tick off another item from my very long " I want to make that" list. And not only have I used a very long ago stashed pattern, I have also used stashed fabric and learned how to enlarge patterns. Well that bit did not work too well, but I think I can work out what I did wrong, and at least I now have confidence to have another go at it when next I want to. Baby steps and all that.

I just need summer now....

Bracken