Style Arc Renae Dress

A few weeks ago I got the Renae and Layla dress patterns from Style Arc, and first up is Renae.  Although I originally planned to make this in red cotton twill, some blue linen leapt out of the cupboard and insisted on becoming this dress.  Actually, although the fabric is a nice colour and weight, it wrinkles when you breathe on it and there is just something about the fabric that I don't quite like.  If the dress didn't work I wouldn't feel I'd wasted nice fabric.  However, it ended up being quite wearable which is rather nice. 

Unfortunately, as it was only a muslin, I didn't bother to neaten the edges before I started to construct it (completely forgot that step in the process), so its a hot mess inside despite attempts to neaten things the old fashioned way with a zig zag stitch.  Its completed and I can wear it for this summer (if we ever get a summer) so its all good.

The inserts were a pig to put in as my linen frayed horribly, I forgot to mark the match points, and I couldn't be bothered to get up and go get the notes I have on how to do them properly (as it was only a muslin).  Next time I'll take more care and time.  However, this was the only difficult element of the dress, everything else went together smoothly and easily though I admit I didn't follow the pattern instructions or construction sequence. Even the facings went on successfully despite forgetting to stay stitch the neckline edge.  Or at least, they went on successfully up to a point. 

The dress is designed to have an invisible zipper. I'd bought a red zipper for my planned red dress.  And cut a blue dress out on Sunday morning when the shops were closed.  Naturally I didn't have a blue invisible zip in stash.  I did, however, have a bog standard zipper in navy, so I put that in as a lapped zipper so that the zip


colour was hidden.  First time I've done a lapped zipper and I followed my Pants for Real People book instructions with what I felt was some considerable success.  Until I got the facing on.  The facing was, of course, designed to fit over a centred invisible application... so there was a need to do a bit of fiddling to get the facing to fit without obscuring the first few inches of the zipper entirely.  Of course, if you use the right zipper, that wouldn't happen. 

Unbelievably, this dress fitted with only one alteration.  ONE!!!!!  I took the waist in.  As far as I can tell, the dart control in the pattern resides within the panel seams to a large extent.  So to take in the waist I just took a dart in all four vertical panel attachment seams (two front, two back.  I left the side seam, which is shaped, completely alone).    This made a massive difference to the fit which had been a bit boxy and unflattering prior to the alteration.  There may be a touch too much ease in the hips, but I left that because it gives more comfort room for sitting and gives the illusion of more of an hourglass shape by making my hips look bigger than they are.  It also means the dress skims over my stomach without clinging to it and is not too tight to wear on a hot day (if we ever have such a thing).

Please excuse the wrinkling in the photos.  I ironed the dress just prior to putting it on Twiggy.  It was immaculate and wrinkle free when it came off the ironing board.  It went straight onto Twiggy.  The wrinkling you see is the result of putting the dress on the form and zipping it up.  I think you can see what I mean about the incredible wrinkling properties of this fabric.  I made another dress in this fabric and although some linen does seem to wrinkle less and less with repeated washing... that is not the case with this fabric I can assure you.  It ALWAYS looks like you slept in your dress, even straight off the ironing board.