Joyce's Hacked Plum Dress

Lovely Joyce, based in The Netherlands, is our latest guest maker to hack one of the CocoWawa patterns! She chose the super easy-to-sew-and-fit Plum Dress, which is one of our best-selling patterns and it comes in two size ranges up to a 156cm / 63'' hip :) 

Joyce went for her usual size and chose a super cute gingham cotton from the Dutch shop Javrostoffen. The main changes in her dress? She added a double ruffle to the sleeve, also sew two straps to tie at the back to get a closer fit for the dress and she also added three beautiful cherry embrodery details.

Do you want to know more? Keep reading! :)

•  I made the version with the back buttons but because the neckline is wide enough I didn't sew buttonholes. Instead, I just stitched them through both layers of the back button placket by hand. I used pink buttons to match the ricrac and green topstitching to match the other ricrac.

• When I did the back button placket and shoulder seams I tried on the bodice and measured where I wanted for my shoulder ruffle to be and decided for where usually a non-drop shoulder sleeve would sit.

• Then I measured approximately where I wanted the ruffle to end on front and back. Next time i would give this ruffle extra length. I added the ruffle right sides facing so the stitching wouldn't be visible once you flip the ruffle towards the arm. I wanted the two ruffles to slightly overlap so I shaved a few centimeters from the shoulder and also the armscye and sewn it on like usual.

• Then, I cut two long strips and sewn one short and the long side together and topstitched them to the back bodice for a back bow.

And now, for Joyce's Plum Dress in on its glory!

Thank you so much Joyce for your amazing work. Your Plum Dress is so, so cute!