Last year, after being accepted into the Stone Mountain & Daughter Fabrics Sewist Team, my first run at it was scheduled for March.
Check out the post on Stone Mountain here.
Racking my brain looking for what to make, that would be special, but also not too complicated; as I wanted my gifted fabrics to shine, I finally chose the Anna Dress from By Hand London. This dress as been on the wishlist for quite some time and was purchased recently during a sale, making it the perfect candidate.
Looking around on the Stone Mountain Fabrics site, I fell in love with a beautiful blue and white cotton block print from India. Knowing full well that mixing contrasting fabrics is now my thing, I also picked out a mustard yellow viscose linen blend. Coming up with a mock up in Photoshop, helped me determine how much yardage was needed.
Modifications/Adjustments
The Anna Dress has a fitted bodice so making a muslin .. or two .. or three was prudent. Here are my modifications below.
Front Bodice
- Side seams stitched at 3/8″
- Modified neckline shape
- Removed 1″ neck gape and transferred to pleats
- Removed 1/4″ from shoulder at neckline, tapering to 3/8″ at sleeve
Sleeve Area
- Dropped armscye 1/2″
- Shortened sleeve by 3/4″, tapering to nothing at armpit
Back Bodice
- Side seams stitched at 3/8″
- Removed neck gape 1) Slash and overlap 1.5″ from neck to sleeve and 2) Removed 1″ dart and transferred to waist dart
- Swayback: Removed 2″ from mid back tapering to nothing at sides and curved the center back seam
- Removed 2 3/8″ height from shoulder
Skirt
- Transferred 1/2″ section from the center front to side front panel to match darts and panel alignment
- Removed 1 1/8″ from center back – fitting it into the seam line as a dart
- Cut center front panel with 1″ seam allowance and eased in the extra fabric – this was because it was too tight when I sat down with the muslin
- Added side seam pockets
Originally, the plan was to do a 1/4 circle skirt but I ended up using the panels in the pattern. So after cutting the pieces for my dress, I had enough leftover to make Lilli a dress too. Her last dress was made using the Reese Dress Pattern from Violette Field Threads. On a whim, I modified the bodice to match the drop shoulder sleeves that the Anna Dress had.
The contrasting yellow was added as piping around the neckline and waist, and then at the bottom of both dresses as gathered fabric. My signature style is to have a belt sewn in around the waist to help define it. But the pleats with the Anna dress didn’t lend well to that – so I made some add on belts, that close with sewn in snaps. It can be worn with or without the belt for different looks.
Running out of the mustard yellow, I used my muslin fabric for the inner portions of the belt. Talk about reuse! I literally have only scraps of both fabrics, but not before being able to make a headband for Lilli!
Free Motion Embroidery
The fabric lent itself to a nice canvas for some embroidery. Lilli is fascinated with space right now so it was only natural to add a sun on hers.
Mine was a different story – embroidering the petals and stamen separately then shaping them and finally sewing the petals together. It makes for an elegant brooch on this dress.
Would I sew it again? Would I recommend it to others?
There were a lot of tweaks I had to make, to make the pattern work for me. I am used to making lots of adjustments but these seemed to be more than normal so I’m not sure I would recommend the pattern. That being said, now that I have the adjustments made I want to try it with a half or even quarter circle skirt. I don’t think I would make the skirt part again.
Lilli’s on the other hand, I would definitely sew and recommend!
Blogs I found helpful in making the Anna Dress: Made by Meg and The Mindful Sewist
~*~*~*~ Fabric in this post was gifted by Stone Mountain and Daughter Fabric. All opinions here are my own.~*~*~*~