Gemma’s Patina Dress Hack
This month’s fabric is absolutely fabulous and I wanted to create something that was as epic and worthy of such a beautiful print.
I knew it had to be a show-stopping dress of some kind, and looked through my saved inspiration folder for ideas. I had one post saved from a while back that I knew would be amazing, it would need a little work on my part but if I could pull it off… I knew it would be the ultimate dress!
I can’t take the full credit for this hack – it’s on the Friday Pattern Company blog, a post created for them by @bellllagrace in which she hacked the Patina Blouse into a full length dress similar to one created by a well known slow fashion brand (which I also really love!). It looks so good, and I knew it would be amazing to create in this month’s fabric. I love a viscose fabric and this one is no exception – it has such a good weight to it and is ideal for drapey projects that have gathering.
You can read the full blog post on how she managed to recreate her dress. I used this as the starting point for mine, and did a few things differently (as well as some points I would redo). I actually found this to be a lot easier than I thought it would be, once you work out how to hack the different pieces together it is plain sailing through the sewing part!
As the back bodice of the Patina shirt is a yoke with gathering, I knew I would need to change this into a dress bodice. Bella’s post helped with this – I redrew my pattern piece by adding the yoke to the back, cutting it on the fold, and also cut the front piece on the fold too. Size wise I used the same as my usual shirt size as I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get into it as a dress, but needn’t have worried, if anything it’s a little big! I used the low neckline version of the shirt pattern, which meant I didn’t need to create a fastening as there is plenty of room to get into it over your head.
That collar was going to be the main focal point, and just like Bella I added a ruffle to mine in a matching colour fabric (this is actually a cotton chambray rather than a viscose, to give it some structure.) I attached it to the bodice, and decided to finish the neckline with bias binding (in the blog post she fully lined her bodice) as I found it a lot easier, and could use a pretty design from The Specky Seamstress to really make my dress fancy!
I did shorten the bodice pieces to my natural waist, and then used the Tilly and the Buttons Lyra dress skirt pieces to create the bottom of my dress, as again, for ease, as it is already calculated for adding on a bottom tier. I made this the usual way (added in seam pockets of course!) and word of warning – so much gathering!
Adding the finished skirt to my bodice, I was so happy when I tried it on and it looked so good! Normal people would probably toile when hacking 2 patterns together… What can I say, I like to live on the edge!
One thing I would change is the neckline at the front slightly – i didn’t alter this as I was hoping the collar would meet in the middle (much like the blog post version) however mine didn’t, so I should have scooped that up ever so slightly. However it is not a major issue, and still looks great! My collar pieces also seemed to end up slightly more rounded than the sharp point the Patina is known for, this is just down to my sewing with the placement of the ruffle, but I wasn’t going to unpick through all that gathering, so left them as they were.
All in all, it is just what I was hoping for – an epic looking dress that shows off such a gorgeous fabric beautifully! It has high swish factor, and is so roomy, now I need somewhere special to wear it!