Brueram dresses and give away

Like last time, I had the honor to test Sofilantjes newest pattern. This time she is releasing a pattern for woven fabrics, the Brueram dress. It is a summer pattern in three lengths, top, dress (high-low hem) and maxi. I preferred to try the high-low hem, I have seen many nice ones recently, like this one. For kids the low back really decreases the likelihood of underwear showing, I am a fan. I love it so much that I didn't take a break after KCW but immediately made a second Brueram dress and I already planned four others (really, no joke, literally four are on my to do list). Due to the fact that you will be seeing much more of this pattern I decided to put the test dress and the second one in one post. My 100th post! 75 Percent of those posts are written since September first 2014. As is good tradition in blogland I am celebrating this nice occasion with a gift to you, my readers, but first back to the dress.

The dress has an elastic shirred back. I shirred with elastic thread a few times before, like for this dress. If you never tried it, it really is much easier than it appears. This pattern is an intermediate sew, and shirring is not explicitly explained, but there are many tutorials out there, like this one. In the first dress I opted for two soft cactus' fabrics, one for the bodice and one for the skirt. In the tester pool I saw pictures from this creative woman of a beautiful top of which only the back had a contrasting fabric. I loved it and did the same for the second dress. For both dresses I used a soft cactus for the shirred piece. Both had a small horizontal print which made sewing horizontal lines very easy.

The dress version of the pattern has a wrap skirt of which the skirt pieces look like flower petals. I really wanted to accentuate the nice lines of the skirt pieces so for the first dress I decided to have a bias edge on the skirt. This is not an official option, but is easily done. If you want to do one yourself do not forget to remove the seam allowance from the bottom seam. Another thing which is not part of the official options is pockets, I added those as well in the side seam.

I love the length of the dress, my three year old is growing that quickly that dresses that fit her perfectly two moth ago are now on the short side. My daughter didn't take off her skirt before she put on the second dress. I noticed while I was editing the pictures. As you can see this dress hides a lot. I also like the wide shoulder straps, Dutch summer usually aren't extremely warm and the thick straps make the dress suitable for less than 26 (Celsius) degrees weather.

The dress calls for under-stitching, another technique that might seem scary but isn't and it gives a very neat finish to the dress. The only exposed seams this dress has anyway are the skirt side seams and bottom hem. All the seams of the bodice are hidden.

Like I mentioned already, the test dress was done in Soft Cactus (did you see the new line that is releasing, wow). For the second dress I used a very treasured fabric "Norwegian Woods" from Michael Miller. The fabric has such great colors and print, I am dreaming of using it  for the perfect project for months. Did you see this dress during the fall, stunning! I feel the orange and purple very well match the soft cactus' colors.

The pattern is releasing tonight (in both Dutch and English) and for two days it is almost 50% off! Check it out now. Really go and feast your eyes on the test pictures, I know I have.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is my 100th post and I am celebrating this with a Brueram pattern give away! If you want have a chance of winning this pattern you should follow me (bloglovin, facebook, pinterest, email, site member all is fine) and you should leave comment to this post. If you are the lucky winner but did buy the dress already (due to its great sale for the coming two days), I will reimburse what you paid for the pattern. You can participate until May 2nd.

I love to hear what you think of my creations. Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).