Chloe meet Roxanne, sew it up week 2 challenge

Whoohoo! I made it through week 1 in the Sew it up challenge! Thanks guys for voting for me!

For the second Sew it up challenge we had to make a shiftdress.. Hmm what was I going to do? I usually love my dresses form-fitting or at least fitted at the waist. Until I remembered the one pattern that made me change my mind. The Chloe dress from Victory Patterns. It’s a semi fitted, mid length A-line dress, so perfect for this challenge!

I found some gorgeous Atelier Brunette cotton at Mondaysmilk and thought of a plan to add the pleated collar from the Roxanne top to my dress. This meant changing the pattern a bit, by raising the neckline and elongating the bust seam. But I really wanted to give this dress a little bit of extra edge and for me adding the collar did just that. I love this pleated collar and would add it to everything if I could..

This challenge was all about the techniques and finishing touches. That’s why I used my favourite technique ever, french seams. They just give the whole dress a super clean finish. I even finished the welt pockets with french seams, which was quite a puzzle, but it worked out in the end! (I used this tutorial.) It just feels weird putting the pieces wrong sides together and when there’s a welt flap in between it’s even more of a mindf*ck.

French seams everywhere

The sleeves are finished with bias tape, which I made from the same fabric. I also inserted the sleeves with french seams, using this tutorial from Jen at Grainline Studio. I have to be honest though, I did use my serger to finish the back seam with the invisible zipper. I just didn’t know how to finish this one with a french seam (and Google didn’t know it either).

More french seams!

I think this might just be my new favourite summer dress and I hope you’ll like it too! Clean and simple, but with a little bit of edge. Just how I like it!

I'm already super excited for the next challenge (as I've almost finished it and already love it), so if you've got a minute, please vote for me!

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Sweet and simple, Victory Patterns Chloe dress

This dress is quite different from the shapes that I usually wear. I’ve got an hourglass figure and I tend to gravitate towards dresses that will accentuate my waist. But when I saw the Chloe dress from Victory Patterns I really liked its simplicity. Then when I was at Purl Soho and saw the polka dotted Japanese bias tape I knew I had to make the Chloe dress with it!

Much better fit

I bought linnen at the fabric market in Amsterdam and Chloe was born! It was a very easy make and everything came together nicely. For the bust I cut a size 6 and it fits much better then the size 4, yay!  

At first I was going to use the bias tape around the neckline but then a friend suggested to use it as a sleeve binding instead. Great idea! I think the bias tape as a sleeve binding really accentuates the form of the dress.

The zipper isn’t really invisible, but I made this dress before I got my new invisible zipper foot.. Ahh well, what can you do..

I might still add some buttons in the middle of the pockets, now they have a tendency to open when I’m sitting.  I also accidentally serged a bit of one side to the seam allowance as you can see in this picture, but I’m getting my seamripper out tonight! Problem solved!

Oops..

Overall I’m really happy with this dress, even though I still have to get used to wearing a loose-fitted dress. After asking my boyfriend he said it looked really good and that the shape of the dress looks good on me. When we were on holiday and I asked him what to wear one evening, he even suggested this dress, I’ll believe him then!

A final seaside dinner drinks picture, since I'm already longing for another holiday! Which won't be until November probably..

With my dad and my boyfriend, the colours are real, no Photoshop!