If ever there was a sewing dress pattern that made me feel most like a princess, the Cinnamon Daisy Poppy dress is the one! I cannot even begin to describe how fantastic I feel in this dress.
I have been wanting to sew this dress since Emma first released it about a year ago, the more versions I saw popping up on social media the more convinced I became. I hadn’t heard a single bad thing about it – everyone was raving about the fitting guide to make sure you get a fantastic fit on the bodice so much so that a lot of reports were of ladies such as myself with a slightly bigger frontage were able to go braless for the first time ever.
Colour me very intrigued!
I first met Emma when we featured her Sylvie Skirt on ThreadySetGo last year and I have been waiting to pounce on the Poppy ever since, wanting to feature it on ThreadySetGo and happily Emma said yes. So if you want to make you own Poppy dress or top we have some handy video sewing tutorials that will walk you through some of the key techniques and until the end of February you can get a discount on the pattern. PLUS we will be chatting to Emma as well as Laura from The Specky Seamstress and Karina from Lifting Pins and Needles on Tuesday 24th February in our live online event – would love to see you there!
I knew that in order to do this pattern justice I would need to toile up the bodice – we know from much experience that one size does not mean one shape! So going by my measurements I cut out a size K in the D/E/F cup with the waist panel. I did also add a shortened peplum in order to fully test the zip and tested it with the thicker straps although at this point I hadn’t decided which sleeve style I wanted to go for.
The bodice stitched up super quick and easy, just make sure to keep a note on which seam is the “full bust seam” as it can be a little hard to tell just by looking at the fabric pieces.
I made the toile in calico which is a nice stable fabric and when I tried it on… well goodness me I was already feeling pretty fantastic! The fit was almost spot on and in this stable calico I could indeed go braless – unheard of for me.
A couple of adjustments were needed – I took a small wedge out of the upper bust, in between the straps and the side seams as I had a little gaping there. I also lengthened the under bust as the seam wasn’t sitting flush against my body where the bra band would sit and I decided to add a little extra height to the upper bust as it was feeling a little more exposing than I would like. Finally I graded out to the waist at the sides. As the skirt is gathered there wasn’t really any need to further grade to my hips.
I opted to sew the zip back bodice because I wanted to film an invisible zipper tutorial and the sleeve decision was taken out of my hands as I didn’t have enough fabric for anything other than the wide straps!
One more thing I changed – the skirt is incredibly wide and the cutting layout suggests to cut it flat on the crossgrain. Again – I didn’t have enough fabric for this, and I was determined to make this dress out of a beautiful blue chambray I had in my stash. So I lay the centre edge of the skirt piece against the fold of the fabric and narrowed the hem of the skirt by drawing a line from the waist to where the hem met the selvedge.
Once that was out of the way, I forged ahead. The bodice is lined, I missed the part in the instructions where it says to use a stable fabric like cotton in the lining and grabbed a viscose from the stash.
Everything sewed up like a dream – I let the dress hang for 24 hours before deploying my lovely mum to help me level off the hem, which I decided to finish with bias binding from The Specky Seamstress as I don’t like sewing a double fold hem on a curve.
Time to try it on and let me start by saying I love love love this dress!!! However, after sewing the toile in calico which is incredibly stable, the results were slightly different in the lightweight chambray with viscose lining and alas… braless was not an option this time! I also did not quite get the straps in the right place to wear with my bras.
Having said that… it is still February and the thought of wearing anything without sleeves and layers isn’t one I’m ready to entertain so until I can find the right bra to wear with this dress in the warmer months it looks absolutely fantastic layered over a plain jersey top and leggings.
Now, as and when I sew this dress again I would definitely be considering the type of occasion I plan to wear it. I could absolutely sew it with something as stable as calico in the lining – but would that make it uncomfortable for day-to-day wear in the warmer months? Maybe. But… would it make for a total knockout of a special occasion dress? Yes!
I have also made a top version with the elastic back bodice and sleeves and love that just as much… hoping to get out for photos in that one very soon.
