Why do I find it so incredibly difficult to resist the latest patterns from those designers whose personal styles I admire the most?

I mean, the Demeter Dress from Anna Allen Clothing really is incredibly simple, but something about how stylish her versions looked left me unable to resist clicking BUY.

Honestly, I’m about at that point of self justification where I reassure myself that at least buying new patterns is better than purchasing new fabrics…

My Demeter Dress

My Demeter Dress is a size 12 and view B, which is the sleeveless version. The skirt on view B is also longer and slightly less gathered than the skirt on the short-sleeved dress version (version A).

Given that I was sewing this mid-August when it seemed in the Netherlands that summer had well and truly finished, my plan here is to make a version which is highly layer-able into autumn and winter. Sleeveless is often best for this due to the ease of slipping a turtleneck underneath. I always feel warm layering from underneath, rather than adding layers on top!

But here it is with no turtleneck in sight – in all its summer glory!!

Demeter Dress: The instructions

OK, that’s kind of a misleading heading since I didn’t really use the instructions.

The thing is, there were a few little things in the introductory part of the instructions that bugged me.

The sizes were listed in inches only, not metric. I know this is a tiny little thing, but I have a stupid tape measure which is only in metric (on both sides – how idiotic!) and when a pattern lists everything in inches only, I have to get out my phone and do a conversion.

Which is just one little additional step at the already annoying preliminary stage that I would prefer not to do.

When buying a premium product like an indie sewing pattern, I expect simple things like measurements in both imperial and metric (at least in the measurement charts). For me that’s a matter of basic respect for the customer when you market to an international audience.

OK, silly little rant over.

The other thing that bugged me a bit is that the finished measurement chart didn’t include the finished measurement around the hip. As it is evident from the photos that this is intended to be a very oversized design, I feel that the finished measurement at the hip was needed to really give an impression of just how much ease to expect there. So I did feel that I was going in a bit blind in terms of picking my size as I would usually have used the finished measurement at the hip to guide me as to whether to go with the chart or to size up or down.

For the record, the chart had me a 12 at the bust, 12-14 at the waist and 10 at the hips. I ended up going with a size 12.

So, all of that is a long winded way to say that I was a bit bothered by the introductory pages of the instructions. So I pretty much abandoned them when it came to the actual sewing part!

Squeezing it out….

I intended this Demeter Dress to be a wearable muslin, using something sitting in my stash. So one of the initial challenges being that I only had 2 metres of this cotton ikat (purchased from my local fabric store).

Which is nowhere near enough!!

I had to cut the back skirt in two pieces and I had no hope whatsoever of being able to pattern match!

I also didn’t have enough fabric to cut out the self bias strips for binding the neckline and arm holes. I do love the fact that the Demeter Dress uses bias binding to finish rather than facing. I hate facings with a passion, so bias binding makes me nice and happy!

Also making me happy was the fact that some distant version of myself had actually cut up scraps of fabric after a finished project and made bias binding out of it. So it was easy to add that to my Demeter Dress and save fabric!

Finally, I also left out the inseam pockets included in the pattern and added oversized patch pockets because I just felt like this pattern was begging for it!

Demeter Dress Modifications

The sewing process for the Demeter Dress was a little up and down.

I put togther the bodice first and, I have to say, that it wasn’t quite as oversized as I’d been expecting. I was a bit worried I’d messed up the sizing.

But then I added the skirt and it suddenly seemed to be a dress of clown-like proportions!!!

My ikat is quite heavy so that likely also influenced it. I felt like, particularly at the back of the dress, the weight of the skirt was making the bodice fit very awkwardly.

So, I added in a couple of darts to the back bodice and I took a whopping 8 inches of width off the back of the skirt. This length cut of the skirt also gave me enough fabric leftover to make a waist tie and loops! Anna Allen has a helpful tutorial about how to do this if you do want a bit more definition at the waist.

With these modifications, the dress and its shape were feeling much more wearable. I did still find, however, that the length was too long on me, so I took an extra 4 inches off the hem!

And voila, the road to my wearable muslin of the Demeter Dress!

Although, I’m not quite sure if I will make another one right away. Do you ever have a fabric that you love so much that you don’t know what to do with it? I have this lovely drawn-look window pane checked fabric that I desperately want to sew into a dress. So I keep making ‘wearable muslins’. in the hope that a pattern will turn out to be worthy of sewing of the ‘real’ version in my precious check.

This experience has made me think that, well, I still haven’t found ‘the one’ for that fabric. Although I’m definitely open to revisiting the Demeter Dress in a lighter fabric choice again in the future.

Now, excuse me, I’m feeling an almost uncontrollable urge to go and check out paint sample sheets at my local hardware store while wearing this dress…

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here. And you can find me on Instagram here.