Sewing time has been woefully hard to find lately, but here’s a wee dress I made recently for a friend’s wedding. I procrastinated for ages on what pattern to use and ended up short on time, so went for a TNT bodice with a frankenpattern twist.
If you didn’t deduce from the post title, it’s the By Hand London Anna bodice with Kim‘s pretty petal skirt. Then I couldn’t resist a bad Star Wars pun since the fabric print sort of looks like little space invaders! As we know BHL patterns are definitely ripe for a spot of Frankenpatterning and I think this is a lovely combo. I wish I could say I carefully planned the hack but in fact I just cut both patterns out as is and hoped for the best. The back darts join up seamlessly and I sort of eyeballed the front as I went along. With a bit of fiddling I made the wrapover skirt front hit the outer bust tuck of the bodice so it sort of looks cohesive all round. Yay!
Luckily the Kim skirt fitted fine with mini tweaks along the way. I exaggerated the side seam shape a bit, curving out at the hip and pegging in at the hem for more of a tulip shape. I also made a tuck instead of the little pleats in the wrapover skirt to echo the bodice design.
As one final flourish I left the top half of the back seam open like a keyhole split. There’s an invisible zip right below it to close the dress. The neckline is finished with self-bias.
The fabric is a lovely silk double georgette (I think) that I got at Mood in LA; it might’ve been from the Anna Sui section. It was the last 1.5yd on the bolt and I used nearly every last scrap. It was a little shifty to cut but pretty nice to sew. It’s quite bouncy and thick but still pressed well, though I serged my seam allowances rather than French as I thought it’d be a bit bulky.
This isn’t overall my best or most precise sewing as I was up against it with time. But it’s nice to have made a little black dress for party season – something my wardrobe was lacking – and I’d definitely use the Anna-Kim combo again.
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