Lili pattern release

Like her, I was over the moon when I received an email with the question if I would be willing to test a pattern. Although I have done several tests, this usually involves me (digitally) ridiculously waving with both hands, hoping to be picked. Designers do not (digitally) tap me on the shoulder asking me to test. I am not assuming I was at the top of their list, but I surely was having a small party behind my screen.

This joyful moment was in the spring of this year, and around May I sewed two dresses. It are summer dresses and have been in heavy rotation the last months. In case you are tempted to skip the rest of the post due to fall/winter season approaching, stop! The designers decided to add long sleeves as a free extension to the pattern, and oh my..,  that red dress look great! This dress, called "Lili" is the first dress of the pattern line "De Schatkaart".

The collar is clearly the thing that immediately grabs your attention. At first, I couldn't make up my mind about my feeling for that collar. I thought it definitely was an intriguing detail, but I feared that I wouldn't love the look on my kids. For the first dress I made, I made the collar as described and I was very pleased with the result. I especially love how the collar behaves like little sleeves and covers the shoulders. You can of course easily make the dress without the collar, that is totally up to you, or do it like her, she did removable collars.

Although I really like the first version, I decided against a second with the same collar, it is a very distinctive piece and having two in my daughters wardrobe seemed a bit much (and my hacker brain wanted to play). I had planned to make the second dress without collar, but because I liked the "sleeve effect" so much I drafted an alternative collar. One without the pleats. I used my last Finch Fabric (bought at Stoffenelf) on the bodice and didn't wanted to cover the animals ears, so I cut out a piece on the front. I sometimes go for drastic measures like that. After construction I realised that the pleats actually make the collar lie nicely on the shoulder. With my circular collar the effect is a bit different  but I still like it. My daughter picks this dress from her closet every time it is clean, so I think she does to (although that might be because of the skirt and fabric and not because of the collar).

The skirt has a few big pleats, I hadn't made pleats in a jersey skirt and was positively surprised about the nice result. For the first skirt I followed the instruction and pleated all pleats in one direction. I prefer my pleats to be symmetrical when measuring from the middle, so the second skirt has box pleats. The instructions suggested using woven fabric as an alternative, which I did with the second dress. The Soft Cactus matches the Finch Fabric wonderfully.

The pattern advised to make a little split at the back. Jersey dresses and shirts always easily fit my kids heads, so I asked permission to skip the split. The Snow white fabric is from Lillestoff by the way. Of course I added pockets.

The pictures were made in May, when my daughter's skin was in very bad condition, she looks much, much better now, but due to the colder weather I wasn't in the mood to re-shoot the pictures. The dresses still look great after many washes, so it really was a combination of bad weather and laziness.

You can buy the Dutch paper pattern at the shops on this list. As far as I know, you can not buy the pattern digitally (yet), but by spamming the designers with emails you might be able to persuade them. 

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).