Averil's Plum Dress guest post
Hello lovely stitchers! This time we have another amazing maker from the sewing community hacking one of the #cocowawapatterns. Her name is Averil and she makes the most beautiful garments. In tnis occasion, she chose to hack the popular Plum Dress sewing pattern. Keep on reading to know everything about it!
Learn everything about Averil's Plum Dress version
"Ever since I took up sewing, I’ve had visions of all the beautiful dresses I wanted to make, so when Ana asked if I could hack the Plum pattern, I jumped at the chance to have a go at making my very first dress.
Plum is a loose fitting babydoll with dropped sleeves. I’m fairly petite, so I normally never go for RTW baggy clothes – I find the style tends to drown me out – but I was keen to try this pattern, as I knew I’d be able to adjust the fit to my size. Ana kindly gifted me the fabric and I decided to go with a gorgeous navy gingham from Sew Me Sunshine. I matched the buttons from my stash and chose a bright pink bias tape for a pop of colour.
This pattern is great for people like me who have made several garments but are yet to tackle trickier things like bias binding. Thankfully, Ana has made a great YouTube tutorial which goes through the pattern step-by-step. As a visual learner, I found it so helpful to watch, and I’m glad that I did because the bias-bound neckline is one of my favourite parts of the dress.
As I’m 5ft tall, the first mod I made was to shorten the mini dress skirt by 15cm. Although I knew I wanted to hack the sleeves, I didn’t have a solid plan for how I wanted them to look. In the end, I opted for a three-quarter length cut with a curved edge, finished with bias binding.
I found it tricky to apply the bias tape, as by this point I had already sewn the sleeves in, so you can see some of it poking through the right side. In hindsight, I should have made a toile first, but I’m pretty happy with the hack overall despite my mess up.
I’m delighted that I’ve finally made my first dress – the loose fit makes it so comfy, and I know I’ll be wearing it loads throughout spring and summer. It’s also a really versatile garment: I wore it casually with trainers in the pics, but it could just as easily be used as a beach dress over a bikini, or dressed up with boots for going out – when the time comes, of course!
Thank you so much, Ana, for giving me the opportunity to hack this beautiful pattern – I can’t wait to make my next Plum dress!".
Thank you so much Averil for this lovely post :) If you fancy making a Plum dress as well, head to the shop to the get pattern, buy a copy and start sewing!
Happy sewing,
Ana
xxx