Using Embroidered Linen for a Wintery Cottage Core Dress
I’ve been perusing the websites of several cottage core linen clothing brands recently, looking for some inspiration. You see, I’m traveling into a bucolic but “comfortable” phase of life and my clothing needs to reflect that. I also really just love wearing linen fabric which just also happens to be a glorious fiber to work with - it wears beautifully with age and also happens to be quite sustainable, given it’s a natural fiber. So, when I was gifted a length of taupe embroidered linen from Fabric Wholesale Direct, I knew I needed to get cracking!
The two dresses above from Voraigh were the inspiration I finally landed on. I wanted something that I could layer yet also wear on it’s own. I already have a black overdress similar to the “Nelda” shown on right and the the dress on the left served as a base inspiration for the design I created below.
For efficiency sake (and being slightly lazy when it comes to pattern making), I started with a pattern I had already and had made a dress from before (also out of linen). The starting pattern is simplicity 8384. I made the following modifications:
Added back darts and decreased waist as no elastic was required.
Created a bishop sleeve (that was from the previous version)
Revised neckline to be more open and scooped and added a facing.
Combined front/back skirts with the side front/back skirt so that it did not have extra seams (only side seams)
The original dress has an elastic waist so the bodice blouses. I did not want that blousing with this dress so I took out fullness at the side seams on both front and back and shortened the bodice length at the bottom edge. The neck was opened up and dropped down and an all-in-one facing added to the front bodice. I made a back neck facing as well. I’m not sure if I made the neckline low enough. Might have to try this again with a lower neckline (and maybe a different sleeve?) to figure that out. Sometimes things need a few go-rounds before they are 100% right and then sometimes it’s ok if they are just not 100% right.
Here is the all-in-one facing.
I overlapped the skirts at the seam allowance to create a single front and single back skirt pattern.
I also wanted to create the look of a blouse under my dress so using the Folkwear Dirndle high neck blouse pattern from my previous dirndl dress post, I drafted a pattern for a short dirndl blouse I can wear underneath this dress, my other linen dress and my dirndl. I think it’s really cute and might have to make this version as a full length option.
For this particular dirndl blouse, I drafted a mandarin collar and added a ruffle to it. I also took fullness out of the sleeve so it was no longer a gathered sleeve. If you are considering learning about pattern making I highly recommend Pattern Making for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph Armstrong. It’s a wonderful textbook and I refer back to it all the time.
I’m so looking forward to wearing this dress on the regular and I love that it has pockets and also that I can style it a myriad of different ways (see photo at top). Thanks again to Fabric Wholesale Direct for the opportunity to try out this beautiful fabric.
Until Next Time, Happy Sewing!
xo Jennifer