Tilly & the Buttons Indigo Dress

In November 2021 I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate with my friend Jennie and brought some fabric back with me as a souvenir. I was very restrained, it was the only fabric I bought there, although I did buy Jennie a felt toy kit that you hand sew yourself (pictured below), and some cord from Stitching Me Softly to make myself a macrame necklace. The macrame cord I bought at the show was mustard yellow, but once I made that one I got a little obsessed and bought more cords in different colours. You can see one of the necklaces I made with teal cord in the photos of the Indigo dress as I’m wearing them together.

Anyway, back to the fabric! It’s a cotton jersey (Oeko-tex) dress in a teal/denim blue with black specks. The selvedge says it was made in the Netherlands and designed by Stenzo Textiles. I can’t remember the exact cost but it was probably something around £12-13 per metre and I bought 2 metres.

I had the Tilly and the Buttons Indigo dress in mind for the fabric, although I didn’t own the pattern yet, so I asked for that for Christmas from my sister-in-law and her husband. Had I consulted the pattern first I would have bought more fabric, as you do need over 2m for the dress! When I started cutting the fabric I soon realised I’d have to jiggle things around a bit in order to get all the pieces. I didn’t have enough to cut the back bodice on the fold, so I cut two and as a result my dress has a centre back seam on the bodice. I also had to cut either the sleeves or the flounces on the cross grain – I can’t remember which now! I hardly had any leftovers at all, which was a bit disappointing since I’ve been using up scraps of jersey to make underwear recently!

I hesitated on a few of the design features of the dress. First of all, I really like the exposed frill seams option, but decided to go with gathered instead because a) the wrong side of the fabric is white-based, so that wouldn’t look nice and b) the instructions for this method were really long!!! My second decision was whether or not to have plain sleeves or sleeve flounces. The practical side of me thought plain long sleeves would be better, but in the end I couldn’t resist the flounces because they are pretty. I have no regrets, even though the other day my sleeve accidentally dipped in my son’s dessert as I reached across him at the dinner table!

I really love the finished garment. The loose fit means I can layer it over long sleeve tshirts and it is really soft and comfortable but pretty as well. I will definitely be making more Indigo dresses!