I love the simplicity of ’60s shift dresses, and when I find the perfect pattern I plan on making one for every day of the week! With the ‘Françoise’ dress by Tilly and the Buttons it seemed I could be onto a winner.
It’s such a gorgeous design, full of lovely details like the raglan seams and the optional collar. As you can see, with mine I decided to channel Suzy Bishop!
As always with TATB patterns, the instructions were friendly and easy to follow, so I had no trouble there. Unfortunately, fitting the dress was another story.
As soon as I tried on the toile I could tell something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix it: firstly, there was a lot of extra fabric around my stomach (which made me look like I had a beer belly), and secondly there was something off about the bust shaping that created a kind of ‘shelf effect’.
A more experienced sewer would probably have been able to remedy this in no time, but alas! my limited experience meant I was a bit stuck. All I’ve done in the past, fit-wise, is altering the waist darts, but as there aren’t any on this pattern I was left bemused. I (stupidly) assumed that once I made it up in the proper fabric, which was thicker and more structured, these problems would magically go away. Obviously, this did not happen, and so I’m left with a dress that I absolutely love but will probably never wear. 😦
Did any of you have similar problems with the Françoise dress? If so, please tell me how you fixed them!
oolong stitches 