This was a whim
A friend mentioned this pattern (off Etsy) and it was cheap and had that cottagecore/hobbit/dirndl look I’m all excited about these days, so I jumped on it.
And… it’s ok.
The sizing I would say was true. I was between two sizes and went with the larger, and I think it is a bit large, in that I might like to have a bit of lacing gap in the front, and it laces closed quite easily right now. Other than that I made only minor tweaks, shortening the shoulder straps and reducing their angle, and trimming a bit off the bottom of the back for my swayback; all typical for me.
The pattern has fairly detailed instructions for assembling the PDF if you printed at home… but no actual instructions for the sewing (on looking back at the Etsy listing now I see it mentions a video for sewing instructions. Where that video is I’m still not sure….) Now, it’s not a hard sew, but I’m always interested in the construction choices patternmakers suggest, for corset-type garments in particular. So I guess I should hunt down that video.
The fabric I picked was scraps of some kind of crushed red velvet upholstery fabric that’s been lurking in stash for aeons, I think a hand-me-down from someone else’s stash. I picked it because I wasn’t too attached if the project didn’t work out, and part of it was already blockfused to interfacing. (Other parts of the scraps are not… I suspect this fabric has its own fascinating story as the interfacing looks like it was applied industrially)
At any rate it made for a quick and easy way to test the pattern out. I allowed for some extra seam allowance in case of fitting issues but didn’t end up using it except for adding boning to the seams. The 1cm seam allowances the pattern comes with aren’t wide enough to put the boning in using the seam allowances, it’s designed to have boning channels added or have the channels stitched between two strength layers. (Not sure which because I didn’t see the instruction video)
I spent some time agonizing over the finishing, neutral silver grommets with red binding or vampiric black grommets and binding. In the end I went the neutral route, hoping for a more flexible garment, although it feels perhaps just a little Mrs Claus. It still pairs nicely with black so I’m mostly content though.
Construction-wise I did a terrible, half-ass job with the binding, which may have coloured my original impressions of the product. I didn’t want to use the velvet for a self-binding as it’s quite thick, and since this was mostly a quick tester I went with commercial bias tape. The colour match is good but the material itself just didn’t spark joy and I did my second pass attaching it by machine which led to a fair bit of rippling. But it’s bothering me less as I get a bit more distance from it, though I might fix the ends at some point, especially at the front bottom where the angle isn’t at all right.
I might tweak a couple of things if I did it again, like lower the neckline a bit, maybe tweak the curve in the back to be a little wider, and maybe play with the princess seam curve at the bust. And take it in a wee bit. But, all in all, not a bad addition to the more frivolous side of my wardrobe.
Tanit-Isis Sews 