It’s been a little while since my last post it seems!
I’ve just come back from a week of boating along the Rochdale Canal in West Yorkshire (yes in one of those narrowboats/ barges, yes it’s very slow, no it wasn’t relaxing at all…). Needless to say I whipped up a couple of things before I left and this is one of them!
This post is about is the Rhea Dress from Tammy Handmade. (I was gifted the pattern without any obligation to make/ post about it but since I liked it so much I wanted to share it with you!). Tammy is newcomer to the sewing community and has jumped right into it releasing her own PDF patterns, tutorials!
The Rhea dress is a simple dartless spaghetti strap loose fit midi sundress with a tiered skirt. The front comes down in a V and the back has a low scoop back.
I made a short version for myself – not because I particularly wanted a mini version but I was desperate to make it out of this soft beige linen viscose from Stoff and Stil and I knew I didn’t have enough of it to do a longer version!
I shortened the bodice by 1.5cm (Tammy looks tall in her insta photos so I guessed the patterns would be drafted for a taller height than me). For the skirt tiers I roughly followed the width of the skirt pieces and adjusted the lengths of the tiers to fit in my fabric. This meant I ended up with a gathered skirt that hit just above my knees!
The bodice is fully lined which was especially useful for me as the fabric I used would’ve needed lining anyway!
This really was a super quick make. Even with me faffing about trying to decide what length and width to make the skirt panels and messing about with pattern placement, it still didn’t take more than a couple of hours from start to finish. The beauty of dartless loose fitting dresses!
Overall this dress was a real win for me. It worked perfectly with the fabric and I really like the way it hangs on me. It’s a little low in the back to wear a bra without being able to see it but I’m ok with that! I can definitely see myself using it again if I want a strappy sundress!
2 Comments
VERY cute! I like the fit on your dress (over the designer’s website). Did you ‘size down’? (One or two sizes?) Did you shorten the straps? Perfect summer dress!
I picked my actual size for this one – either you don’t need to size down or I’ve put on weight since I last measured myself… 😂
With any pattern with straps I automatically adjust them to suit my size. I always find these are left long on purpose on the pattern piece themselves that in this case I chose not to cut the exact pattern piece but made an estimated guess on the length and then tweaked it on me. If you’re not sure it’s always bet to leave them longer and adjust!