Monday, May 5, 2014

Ethnic Centaurée dress

Size: 40 (42 for the skirt)
Alterations: 3cm small back adjustment.
Fabric: a beautiful cotton lawn with an ethic print, purchased locally. Blue polycotton from Minerva Crafts. 

If you guys didn't notice the release of Deer and Doe's latest pattern, the Centaurée dress, you're missing out!
As usual, I was lucky enough to be included in the testing process of this pattern, and, again as usual, it was a delight.
The Centaurée dress was created by Eléonore almost on a whim (as she explains here), the design came together very quickly, and I fell in love with it design immediately.

First of all, I was over the moon about a new Deer and Doe dress, because it's the type of garment I wear most often and enjoy sewing the most. Furthermore, the dress options by Deer and Doe rank between my favorite patterns ever (Bleuet in primis, then Belladone and Sureau).
And once again, I wasn't disappointed!

Starting with the fit: as I mentioned countless times, I'm lucky enough to have exactly the type of body these patterns are designed for, so not only they flatter me, I also need to make very little alterations.
For Centaurée, I cut a size 40 and made a small back alterations, removing 3 cm from the back bodice. Actually that's what I did for my muslin, but when I cut my fabric I found it to be a little small, so I had to let out the side seam by exactly 3 cm total... I think it might be because some of the pieces of the bodice weren't cut correctly on grain (I didn't have enough fabric), but I'm not sure. I'll need to look out for that in my next version.

Centaurée is rated as intermediate, but an advanced beginner can tackle it as well. The only difficult aspects of this pattern are fitting the bodice correctly (please, please, PLEASE make a muslin) and sewing the bias tape precisely. The rest is actually really fun and quick to assemble. If the illustrated instructions are not enough for you, or this pattern still scares you a bit, there's a sewalong coming your way very soon! Yay!

I'm really in love with this dress and I want to sew many more, playing with just a print or a completely solid fabric (that's probably enough color blocking for me for a while) and with the strap placement... Maybe a maxy version too?