Hi, I am Camelia, or @CalcedoniaSewing in the “sewing world ” and I am here today to share with you one of my latest makes, the Astoria dress from Style Arc Patterns made with the gorgeous Noona-Lycra Jersey from The Sewcial Studio.
I bought the pattern in PDF format the moment it was released, and to be sure that I made it I printed it off very fast and taped it together, at the time I hadn’t realised Style Arc had released patterns into stockists and that Amanda was one of them! then the big question came: what fabric to use?
The package arrived faster than I expected! ( another plus point ) but before I could get into cutting this beauty I had to make a toile as I was not sure about my size.
I pre-washed the fabric ( as I do with all my fabrics ) and then hang it to dry naturally, I don`t intend to throw this dress in the dryer so I treated the fabric the way I am going to do with my finished garment too. I used my rotary cutter to cut all my pieces, so fast and nice clean edges. Are you a scissor or rotary cutter? This fabric didn’t curl at the cut edges and that made it very easy to work with.
I started with a size 10 for the shoulders, 12 for the bust, back to 10 for the waist and hips. So because I was all over the size chart 🙂 a toile was required. I used a rayon jersey I had in my stash, slightly lighter than the noona jersey. Even before I started with my toile, after a bit of measuring the pattern I made a narrow shoulder adjustment of 1cm and also a swayback adjustment of 1.5cm. For both these changes, I used Nancy Zieman’s method of pivot and slide, and that allows to make the changes without cutting in your pattern piece. Also, a swayback adjustment on a back piece that needs to be cut on the fold is easy using this method.
I made my toile with a short sleeve but to be honest I didn`t like it.
Based on my test garment I took the side seams in 1cm extra and I shortened the skirt by 5cm.
The biggest change was to cut the back panel with a center back seam and scoop that seam a bit to make it follow my shape. I really love the result. You can still see a bit of fabric there but I think is more my position than the garment.
I also added some clear elastic in the waist, 1:1 ratio, so not stretching the elastic but just to add support to that seam. Also in the back shoulder seam, I added elastic for support.
The hems are done with a double needle, very easy and fast!
That front tie makes me laugh every time! It looks so strange! I really love this dress, for me is the perfect fabric/pattern combination. I like how the fabric looks so structured in the skirt while actually is so soft and drapey!
I made a small modeling video and there you can really see how nice this jersey “moves”! I wish I had a closet full of dresses in this kind of fabric 🙂