The Olivia Dress

This is my final contribution to Frocktober! This dress is the Olivia Dress, another member of the Cotton and Chalk family for Simply Sewing magazine. It’s sister being The Rosie Dress. I was disappointed with this make for a few reasons.

So… I thought the dress looked really hippy-ish and I went for the first view, which is long and has 3/4 length sleeves. I had some purple paisley viscose which seemed to fit the bill nicely; turns out I was wrong.

The neckline was a challenge, it nearly drove me mad, but I stepped away from it and now, I’ve even managed to pattern match the facing!

Once I worked the neckline situation out, the rest of the construction was pretty easy. Check out my super neat, contrast elastic casing!

However, next problem… because I did have to insert elastic, it was hard to fit this to my shape along the way and the dress was too big in the end. Also, because the pattern is so busy it just felt too frumpy and unflattering, which just goes to show the importance of fabric choice.

So I took it back to the machine after a month or so of blatantly ignoring it. I took the arms and sides in by an inch and took 9 inches off the length (I managed to keep a little bit of the original side slit, which I like as a feature). It’s not a big change but enough to completely change the look of this dress for the better and make it in to something far more wearable. What a winner! If your interested in hearing more about my frustrations with this dress, take a look at my post (it’s riveting I promise!)