Alder Shirt Dress by Grainline Studios

I'm almost annoyed that this dress sorta kinda of looks good.  I almost gave up on it and wasn't even going to bother putting on the buttons. I seem to have the worst luck with these independent patterns companies and their sizing.  I do my measurements against whatever the pattern says, then during the construction process I try it on and it is generally 2 or 3 sizes too big.  This was such a drama with this dress particularly regarding it having a collar. Everything just looked like it was swamping me when I first tried it on.  And the neck band didn't quite work out as it should have.  I don't think I had any trouble making it up as the instructions were clear. In the end I added some darts to the front to take it in. Fortunately the pattern and colour of the material hides them.

I even got so far as doing buttons holes, then gave up on this dress. It sat there for months and months on my dressmaker dummy.  Putting the buttons on was a bit of a horror show.  I laid the dress out flat on the floor and marked where I wanted the buttons to go trying to cross over the front sections enough to make the neckline look reasonable.  I had to move buttons a few times. Fortunately I was on holidays when I did this so I didn't feel as annoyed about wasting all this time on a simple task. 

I am happy with how this dress looks on and I wouldn't mind trying to make another at some stage.  I just feel a certain amount of bitterness towards the pattern which I may never quite recover from.  At least it's a super comfy dress best to be worn in the cooler months with tights and maybe a cardi.