Esther’s Giselle Dress

With this month’s Classic Box Esther used the cotton poplin to make a stunning Sew Over It Giselle Dress

As it’s getting warmer, I’m getting so excited to dress up in wonderful prints and beautiful colours. Well, in truth, I don’t need the sun to be out to dress colourfully. I always love the start of a new season, I enjoy all the dreaming and planning of a new wardrobe. In reality, I don’t end up making all my plans but planning my wardrobe is still one of my favourite parts of sewing. I have been thinking of my spring and summer wardrobe and dreaming of all my makes. This month’s box came at the perfect time. I absolutely love the fabric, with its colour and print, I feel it would fit perfectly in my Spring and Summer wardrobe.

Looking at the fabric, I had an influx of garment ideas. I couldn’t decide whether to make all in one pieces as I enjoy making dresses and jumpsuits for the sheer fact that I can be all dressed up in one go. I also enjoy making separate pieces as I love the versatility of being able to create different looks. The fabric was so versatile that I knew it would make a lovely dress, a beautiful shirt, a playsuit or some culottes. Needless to say I had a tough time deciding what to make.

After a bit of thought, I decided to make a dress and I chose a pattern I had wanted to make for some time – the Sew Over It Giselle dress. I immediately fell in love with this pattern a while back after seeing a number of makes on Instagram.

I made this pattern earlier this month, which served as a wearable toile so I knew that even though my body measurements placed me in a size 14, I could actually go down to a size 12. This is exactly what I did, I made the size 12 with a full bust adjustment. I also took off an inch of length from the bodice, took out a wedge from the neckline and did a narrow shoulder adjustment. These are my standard bodice adjustments. I used a smaller seam allowance for the back seam and zip as the dress came up a tad snug.

The pattern has you close the back with a short invisible zip and a keyhole opening. I decided to go with a longer zip and forgo the keyhole opening. I considered shortening the skirt as it comes up quite long which I feel makes a dress look more formal but I couldn’t decide on a perfect length so I decided to leave the pattern as is.

This pattern was such a quick make, after cutting all the pieces, it was quite a straight forward sew. The ease of the pattern was also helped by the wonderful fabric, it was a dream to press, cut and sew. The skirt is made up of 6 panels so my advice is to use masking tape to label each skirt piece as they may start to look quite similar. The neckline is finished with a binding that you make from the fabric but I opted for store bought bias binding which is my favourite way to finish necklines.

While looking at Instagram posts of the Giselle dress, I fell in love with the dress made up with some statement sleeves so I considered hacking the pattern with different sleeves but I stuck with the sleeves from the pack in the end.

I am so excited to add this dress into my wardrobe and am looking forward to wearing it out and about as it gets warmer.