Calcedonia Sewing: Kristen Dress -Designer Stitch Two times

Finally something new in almost one month! And this is not just "something", there are actually two dresses that I love. This is the latest pattern from Designer Stitch, Kristen dress, and the testing started exactly when I was going away for the summer holidays so I can`t say that I tested this, so this is more like a review.

The Kristen dress has a princess style bodice with pleated flared skirt. It comes with cups sizes ( B, C, D and DD) and in sizes 2-22. It can be sleeveless or with flared sleeves. There are also optional side seams pockets.

I wanted to make this dress really bad as I love the ruffles and the skirt volume. You can see that I loved the ruffles so much and so I made the first dress without them :)).

I could not decide on the fabric to use, and because I was not pressed by the timeline for the testing I did have a lot of time to think about my fabric choice. I had a few other fabrics in my stash for this but the skirt was not fitting and so I had to search again ( in my stash :) ) and found this...perfect width, great print/color but the weight was not good to make it with the ruffles. This is a stretch poly crepe, medium weight and there was no way I could get ruffles out of it...or at least nice ones. I think it looks great without too.

I made a size 2C ( US4) for the shoulders and bust blending to size 3 at the waist. It was possible to make a size 2 also for the waist as I have a bit of ease there, but like this, it is very comfortable around my waist ( I can eat at ease without being afraid that I will pop out of my dress ). I made my usual changes ( 1cm narrow shoulders adjustment, 1 cm sway back adjustment and at the center back neck I took 1 cm ( with a total of 2cm) out blending to nothing as I had a bit of gaping in my muslin stage) Also I took 5cm off the length of the skirt ... I am thinking now that I could put that back in a future dress to get another look. Really happy with the fit, like very very happy!

I had to decide on the print matching...while I was only in the mood to sew, so after getting up on the front, pretty fast, I took some time to get the back matched, at the zipper. It looks ok...maybe like 1mm off but who is looking ?? :)) I interfaced the zipper area for strength and to get a bit more grip on my stretchy fabric.

I love this dress, the fit is great, and I think I love it so much also because I did not have to work so much to make it fit, Ann from Designer Stitch knows her thing :).

And because I love so much this version and because this pattern is about the ruffles, I made immediately one more, with ruffles! Both fabrics are from Driessenstoffen ( no affiliate).

I love when I can sew, without worrying about the fit. You get that when you make repeats of the same pattern, so this was easy and fast. The ruffles did make my life difficult ( and my fingers to hurt). Actually, the fabric is to be blamed! This is a polyester crepe, lovely print, and drape but sewing was a bit of a pain. I had to use a 75 stretch needle as the 80 and 90 were too thick and this 75 stretch was the only one that wanted to sew well. Also gathering this fabric was a pain ....I used big stitches for my gathering stitches but not too big as the front and the neck ruffles are gathered with one row, but oh boy the fabric did not want to move on my thread! For the armholes ruffles I tried to gather with my serger as I sometimes do on 6mm SA, but that was also a pain...anyway , after a bit of swearing and sweating, it was done !

This is not me twirling :), is just the wind, the skirt has nice flare and the fabric is light...which makes it dangerous wearing it on the street on a windy day :)))

There were no changes, I used the same pattern as in the black/flowers print.

Really love the ruffles! New haircut, as you can see in these pictures, I have no idea what to do with it, I wore my hair for years in a pony tail so I need to find my way with it, I hope :))