Of course I was going to make something for The Monthly Stitch’s Pattern Hack week for Indie Pattern Month. Pattern hacking is quickly becoming a favorite sport. The particular dress that I had in mind for this challenge I’ve had on my must make now docket for 2 years. It’s inspired by Boden’s Alice dress that came out around that time. Here’s the original:
I instantly was drawn to the colorblocking in the large scale geometric shapes and the easy-wearing silhouette. Fabric magicked its way into my stash after I found this dress, but some of these initial fabrics were not the right colors I was looking for. I bought the same green ponte twice from two different places. “Coral” turned out to be neon orange and “soft yellow” turned out to be more like a school bus that got hosed down with a mustard cannon (Buy swatches people. Ugly fabric is forever). So this project got shelved until a pretty piece of salmon ponte came into my stash via Fabric Mart. Can salmon save a colorblocking disaster? It sure did for this Winter Street Geometric Dress!
Winter Street Geometric Dress Mash up!
Fabric
The colors that I chose for this dress really remind me of a taffy shop.
I always enjoyed seeing salt water taffy being made when I was a kid (more so than eating it), and the bright springy colors are just the sort that make me happy. All of the fabrics are ponte, and the colors are salmon, white, spring green, and a light spring blue. The primary yellow I got by dyeing pieces of the white fabric with Rit DyeMore in daffodil.
Pattern(s)
For this particular hack, I used 3 1/2 ish different patterns. All of the colorblocking was my own drawing of lines all over said patterns. Here’s the rundown:
- Patternreview’s Winter Street Dress: I love the bodice on this pattern. It’s a nice easy scoopneck, and the waist seam hits me at a good spot. I used this pattern before as my day dress for the Day and Night Dress Challenge. A shortened version of the patterns’ sleeve was used. I would’ve used the skirt, but I didn’t want the pleats in the skirt that are in this particular pattern. There was concern that the colorblocked sections would be interrupted too much by the pleats.
- Blank Slate Patterns’ Denver Tunic: I like the princess seams on this particular pattern. With my Day and Night Dress Challenge Winter Street, I used the Denver as a template for some embroidery work. On this project, I used the front side panels as actual pattern pieces.
- Jalie’s Bella Dress/Tilly and the Buttons Coco: Well, I started out using the skirt from the side panels fused on top of Tilly and the Button’s Coco dress. The Bella flares out dramatically on this pattern. Ultimately the ponte did not have enough drape to handle the flare, so I draped out the side seams to make a more A-line skirt. The final skirt is closer to the original Coco dress skirt in shape, though it’s not quite as wide.
Creating the colorblocking (aka pattern freestyling)
In addition to the above pattern pieces, I added back side panels. Using a French curve, I drew a line where a back side panel would approximately lie.
To make the colorblocking, first I drew lines all over my skirt to emulate the shapes in the inspiration dress using a regular ruler and also a French curve.
To save a little time, I cut right on these lines and added seam allowances to the appropriate places on my actual fabric. Then, to keep myself honest, I labeled the pieces with “up” on the top edges and with a “+” on every edge that needed a seam allowance added. Next, I numbered all of the seam intersections so that I would put the puzzle together in the right way.
The skirt back is a mirror of the front which makes for some cool side seam intersections. All of the many intersections took some careful sewing to get the points right, and overall, I’m pretty pleased with how things came together.
Hiking dress?
My backdrops for this dress are in Zion National Park. I thought it’d be a little awkward wearing a ponte dress in the middle of the woods, yet it turned out to be quite the comfortable getup in the early morning. No doubt if my family and I had gone out late in the day when we first got to the park the previous day, it would’ve been awful. In fact, by afternoon it was well over 100 degrees! In the morning, it was closer to 70 in the woods which was lovely. I’m looking forward to wearing this one in the cool of fall with some leggings and boots!
Overall, I’m really pleased that I finally tackled this project that was on my must do list!
Check out more on my blog, follow along on Instagram, and see my pattern hacking dreams turned reality on my YouTube.
Your dress was my favourite so I just had to say congratulations! I love your dress to the moon and back 🙂 I have that pattern review dress and didn’t even recognize it in your rendition!
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Ah, thank you!
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Love this ! And I’m the same on preference for watching taffy being made rather than eating it 🙂
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Thanks! It’s a fascinating thing to watch!
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This is such a great looking sweet dress. All that colour blocking and matching. Beautiful.
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Thank you Sonja! I really love precision projects like this that stretch my matching skills!
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wow, this must have been quite some work! But it turned out fantastic! It looks so professional too! I love the color blocking so much! I had a laugh with your description of the fabric buying process 😉 Indeed, swatches would be a good idea sometimes, but ordering fabric right away is also so much fun, no? 😉 Anyway, I totally LOVE your dress and am sure I’m not alone in that!!
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Thanks Barbara! Indeed, as wise a move as swatches are, they do put a slow down on the process. Half the time, I never order fabric I’ve swatched!
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What a fun dress and those pics!!!!
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Thank you!
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This dress is positively scrumptious. I think I want to make one as well! Thanks for the inspiration
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Thank you Joanne, and you’re welcome! 😊
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What an amazing dress! It’s so like your inspiration dress but in better colours!
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Thank you! These are definitely colors that suit me better, and it was fun to reinterpret the style with my palette.
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Amazing work resulting in a beautiful and unusual dress.
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Thank you!
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Wowzer! So impressive. Love that the colour blocking is irregular.
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Thanks Naomi! It was fun planning out the colors.
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Gorgeous colours + I just spent 15mins watching taffy being made! I’m not even sure we have ‘salt water taffy’ in NZ but I’m probably wrong! I love the effort and details you put into your work 🙂
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Thanks Miriam, and ha! It’s a pretty cool process–who knew sugar was so versatile, right? Wikipedia says it’s an American thing, but I’m sure there’s similar things around the world just called something else.
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This reminds me of an ice cream shop! And that’s some seriously impressive work creating the silhouette and colour layout.
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Thanks Siobhan! I’d feel very much at home among the springy pastels in an ice cream shop!
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Fabulous idea and great dress 🙂 That’s some serious work figuring out the pattern pieces!
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Thank you! It was definitely a bit of a puzzle.
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