My take on the Reformation dress
One of my favorite things to do is watch Youtube videos on anything that has to do with sewing, fashion, and fabrics. One day this lovely lady Lisa Kisch from the Youtube channel And sew on, did a flip through the Spanish magazine's video. Not often my heart skips a beat when I see a pattern pass by on social media, but this is exactly what happened when I saw this gorgeous Patrones pattern.
I fell in love with it because it resembles the beautiful dresses from The Reformation, an LA-based awesome sustainable fashion brand. For a long time, I have been searching for a pattern so that I could make one myself, and there it was! Now first I have to say I am Dutch and my English is pretty good, but my Spanish… It is not existing. So taking on a dress that required sewing techniques that were new for me (the elasticated top of the bodes and elasticated shoulders) was a bit scary.
Ordering the magazine (Patrones number 400) and picking the fabric was the easy part. I just received a shipment with this pretty Atelier Brunette fabric. The background color is very dark blue and is called night. And with this small print, I thought it would make an awesome midi-dress.
As mentioned in my 'Nice to meet you blog', I am a self-taught hobby seamstress so my skillset is always improving with every new pattern I make. I just do it and see what comes out of it. Luckily I have been sewing for years already so I know how the different fabrics work and anything else I just look up on Youtube or the internet.
In the end, it cost me quite some time to put this dress together, but it really is a showstopper I must say. Of course, when not knowing the technique and not being able to read Spanish instructions, this was sometimes a bit of a trial and error story. The elastic was much easier as expected, although I still don’t know exactly how to measure the elastic and make it fit even a bit better than it does right now. But I will definitely make this dress into a top this spring. I just love the square neckline. It’s divine.
The skirt part of the dress consists of lots of different panels because there is a split in the skirt. And at one point I thought I would never gather anything anymore. Like never, ever. But the fabric made up for a lot of the frustrations since it’s so easy to work with. Soft and flowy but not too slippery.
I love the end result and hope you like it too!
If you have any suggestions on how to solve the elastic challenge, I’d be very happy to hear them!
Have you made this dress too? Show me! I can’t get enough of it and am very curious about what fabrics you chose and how the pattern looks on different body types!