My March Minerva Make – The Lady Skater dress

I have been meaning to buy the Kitschy Coo Lady Skater dress pattern for sooooooo long, after admiring it on so many other sewing bloggers.  I don’t quite know why it took me so long to get around to it, but I’m glad I finally did as I love my new dress.  The pattern comes as a PDF, which made me think twice before buying, but I was relieved to find it’s very simple to assemble and doesn’t use tons of paper.  It’s also a quick project to sew up: once I had assembled the paper pattern, I was able to cut and sew up my toile in just over two hours.

The fabric is Ponte Roma stretch jersey in red and black dogtooth.  It is LOVELY and I want MORE.  It’s quite a sturdy knit, which I like, and it feels so smooth and soft.  It also comes in grey and black, tan brown and black, and a rather lovely royal blue and black, too, but of course I had to have red 😉

Before I used the fabric, I made a toile in a size 5, using some plain purple jersey I got from The Man Outside Sainsburys (TM).  This is just regular single jersey – actually from the handle, drape and finish I’d say it was viscose jersey.  The dress turned out ok, but I wanted it to be a bit tighter.  It didn’t seem to hug my waist in the way that I would expect this style of dress to do.  I know that last sentence may make you think I’ve been replaced by an imposter, as I usually complain about things being too tight, but to me the bodice of this dress needs to be a snug fit.

I think the dress looks nice with this jacket (the jacket was not made by me, unfortunately).  I have worn it a few times, and it’s ok, but I definitely prefer my dogtooth version, for which I retraced and made a size 4.  I think it’s miles better on me, but I’m open to other opinions if you have them!

I don’t know if you can tell, but I haven’t hemmed either of these dresses.  I know you don’t technically need to finish the raw edges of knits because they don’t fray, although there’s still part of me that feels a bit naughty for not ‘finishing’.  But then I saw jersey skirts for sale in H&M the other day and they weren’t hemmed either!  Not that H&M is the pinnacle of high quality, of course.

Perhaps I ought to get a twin needle and give that a try.  As it happens, I didn’t really want to take anything off the length of these dresses so that was another reason to not bother.

I love the simplicity of this pattern.  I would recommend it to others although I’m pretty sure that I’m the last person on earth to buy it anyway?!  I’m sure I’ll be making more versions once I get my hands on some more nice fabric.  Thanks to Minerva for the supplies – they sent me the fabric, thread and some clear elastic for stabilising the shoulder and waist seams.  It’s the first time I’ve used clear elastic and I really liked it because it’s less bulky than other elastics.

And now I’m off to drink a cup of tea and maybe start a new book.  Bye for now!