This dress has already been on the Oliver + S blog and Instagram, but how about a bit more of the story of the pattern here?...
It all started with the fabric.
Happily, when A saw the fabric she agreed: a birdy party dress would be fun. Actually, I was kind of starting to imagine the dress for myself so I wouldn't have been too upset if she'd not liked it!
The go-to party dress pattern her whole life has been the Oliver + S fairy tale dress. Let's revisit them!
First ever in a sheer, crinkly poly chiffon all underlined with cotton voile (and then lined as usual with more cotton) - November 2013
The second one followed soon after, in January of 2014, in time to go and see Angelina Ballerina on stage...
A year later, she spied the remnant of fabric in The Fabric Store, and so her birthday dress was another Fairy Tale - February 2015
Sewing up this pattern you can see that it looks good at every stage of construction. It looks good before you add the collar, before you add the sleeves, before you add the belt or sash... So while sewing one version I would find myself dreaming of another. This fourth dress was my all time favourite and definitely made to please me, but boy did she love it too.
Later that same year (2015 was evidently my year of the Fairy Tale dress) we went to The Carnival of the Animals and needed animal themed theatre clothes. Obviously a zebra Fairy tale dress, right?!
I got lucky with her 6th Fairy Tale dress and didn't even make it. We fell in love with this gorgeous spotty ombre dress by Melanie and scored it as a hand-me-down. She really loved that one and wore it until it was far too tight!
So those birds had to be made into a Fairy Tale dress. A quick muslin of the size 12 showed it wasn't going to be.
So I took all the Fairy Tale styling and used the bodice of the Bistro dress (size 0) as my block to build my own fairy tale.
Adjustments as follows:
- moved bust dart up and reduced size
Adjustments as follows:
- moved bust dart up and reduced size
- omitted back bodice darts
- raised neckline and redrafted collar to fit and for shape
- moved side zipper to centre back
- gathered rectangle skirt with the deep fairy tale double fold hem
- sleeveless armhole reshape and finished with facings
Beautiful dress and your changes have worked perfectly.
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