Annie Dress by Tessuti

Finally a more successful maxi dress.  This dress didn't get off to a very good start.  Firstly as far as printing the dreaded PDF pattern went, I thought I'd printed all the pieces.  I chose the A4 option and spent a lunch hour at work putting the pieces together.  I didn't pay much attention to what was written on the pattern pieces. If I had I would have noticed pieces missing.  So upon setting out to make the dress I realised that at least one piece was missing, the shoulder straps.  I went into the original email and found there was a second A4 PDF print out.  I found the strap amongst that.  As far as I was concerned I had all the rest of the pieces so didn't understand what this other print out had on it.  I just assumed I used the same pieces for front and back, particularly for the lower half of the dress.  In fact front and back of everything seemed identical. 

It also became clear on assembly, that I was missing a front yoke and front side section.  As it turns out the facing sections comes as one piece not 2 front/back and side panels (see below). I just assumed one piece was the front section and the two pieces were for the back yolk section and side. I only noticed the word "back" on the pieces after I had laid out my fabric.  

Rather than find the missing pieces I just used the back facing section for the front and joined it up with the back and back side sections. So instead of having 2 side sections there is one little side section that is different. I think it looks fine given the colour of the fabric.  I also didn't want too much under arm flab showing so I added an extra centimetre to this section. Once I worked out the issues with the pattern pieces the dress came together really quickly. A nice easy and super comfy frock. Will definitely try this pattern again. 

I bought the black chambray on line at the Remnant Warehouse. I didn't think I'd have quite enough fabric when I started cutting it out.  But managed to stretch it to get a decent length.  Once again I didn't bother with the pockets.  They may be good for posing for blog photos but I rarely find myself putting hands in pockets in my daily life.   

So lesson learned re: reading pattern first before starting to make it.  It probably would have been more apparent it there was a picture of the layout for cutting out the fabric. Then I would actually notice there were different pieces.  And also I apologise for the grainy nature of my photos.  The weather turned overcast just as I was all ready to shoot my photos.