Inspinration: Nena dress and top

Last year, Katrien from Kaatjenaaisels designed the Tulip dress with Eva and earlier this year she drew the Vienna together with Isabel. Both those patterns had a lovely unique front and now Kartien has released a dress on her own, Nena. The Nena has several lovely design details and has a perfect finish. The pattern includes a top and dress length. It is for woven fabrics and does not have a zipper, so perfect for those with zipper fear.

I tried both versions, the top and the dress. I first sewed the top and I made a small adjustment to the pattern. The fabric that I wanted to use was a bit too small to cut the entire top from. I solved this by color blocking the back in such a way that the back pleat is a contrasting color. I always like to make fixes (a mistake or alack of fabric) look intentional. During this phase of the pattern the back split had to deepened a bit, there was no new version yet and I did it myself. I decided not to cut a once-piece back. During sewing I realized why Katrien designed it as one piece (it created a beautiful finish), so I followed the pattern for the dress.

When looking at the pattern pieces, I saw a perfect opportunity to use my first screen printed fabric. I gifted myself a Bobbinhood kit over Christmas but somehow did not dare to use it. I therefore wanted to follow screen printing workshop. I was so intended to do at least one that I ended up doing three in a period of two months. This blue fabric was the result of the first one. During her bachelorette party, we had a screen printing workshop with chemical screens (that were prepared for us in advance). I designed a screen with drawings from my kids and this fabric was actually my test cloth. It was a remnant of a white sheet earlier this year, that I dropped it in the blue paint that was left after making this dress. I used it to "test" my screen and I thought it had become too pretty to throw away. On my second workshop I printed this dragon and on the third this Harry Potter combi (both Bobbinhood workshops).

Let's talk about all the small details in this pattern. The pattern has elastic in the waist for both the dress and top version to create a nice fit while not using a zipper. The pattern explains how to add a small tie to make a bow on the waist of the dress, but I omitted that one. The pattern has a small pleat on the front at the shoulder which is best visible in my top version. The front has a v neck with a small horizontal ribbon/elastic in it. It is up to you what you sew in between, I twice used elastic to make dressing as easy as possible. The garment closes with a hook and eye, I actually upcycled those from a bra that I stopped wearing.

The dress was sewn with the final version of the pattern. I sewed the dress in a fabric that I took from our sewing weekend. I asked who I could thank, but nobody was sure it had been their fabric so I can not tell you anything about this mystery fabric. With the dress, I followed all the french seam instruction, so the inside is almost as beautiful as the outside. Except for the edge of the facing, there are no visible seams on the inside. Of course, I ran into a small obstacle that I had created for myself. I wanted to add pockets, but I also wanted to have a french seam finish. Fortunately, the web can usually tell you the solution, so I found a tutorial here. The picture is a bit obscure, but you see the inside of the dress with the pocket.