If you follow the Britex blog, you may have caught sight of my new dress. If you want to read more about the beautiful silk blend I used, head over there. Today though, I thought I'd talk about my first try with Lekala Patterns.
Pattern: Lekala's Dress with Pleats
Fabric: Britex silk blend
With this beautiful windowpane fabric, I really wanted a design without too many seams so as not to break up the lines of the fabric. After a lot of searching, I found this simple design from Lekala patterns. If you haven't heard of Lekala before, what is interesting about the company is that each pattern is customized to your body measurements. I was excited to see how it would work.
After you select your pattern, you have the option of entering a series of measurements, from standard bust, waist, and hip measurements to things like neck, relative height of protruding point of the bust, and more. You can also choose whether to add in seam allowances, use English or metric units, and the size paper you want it formatted for.
Because I had never used Lekala before, I decided to do a quick muslin first to check the fit. When I slipped it on the proportions were good, but it was skin tight! I rechecked my measurements and realized I had sewn the seam allowances at 5/8" when they should have been 3/8". Because my main fabric had a good amount of stretch, I decided I would just move on to my garment.
Lucky that my fabric did have a good amount of stretch because the final dress was very fitted. A little too much so, actually. While it is comfortable to wear, I felt a bit like a sausage, especially the way it really cupped my lower belly. Hmmm, maybe there's something to be said for being too fitted. I shortened the darts a bit past the waist, and may also try to let out the seams a bit more if I can manage it.
The only other issue I had to contend with was my swayback, which is always an adjustment I have to make. Even with the custom measurements, there was still some wrinkling at the back. I took the back dart in a bit, but of course that also made the dress a bit tighter as well.
I also found that the sleeves were comically large. I don't have a picture but they stuck out like shoulder pads from an 80's space adventure movie. I took about three inches out of the center raglan seam to bring down the volume. They now sit much better on my arms. I have heard that automatically-graded patterns like this can have some weird anomalies.
I am curious to try Lekala again. The patterns are just $3, so there's no harm in experimenting a little. Perhaps I need to add more ease into my measurements, or maybe the amount of ease varies by pattern. Have you tried Lekala or Bootstrap patterns? Any advice?
In the end, my dress turned out really lovely (thanks mostly to the gorgeous fabric). I see some more experimenting in my future...
Fabric: Britex silk blend
With this beautiful windowpane fabric, I really wanted a design without too many seams so as not to break up the lines of the fabric. After a lot of searching, I found this simple design from Lekala patterns. If you haven't heard of Lekala before, what is interesting about the company is that each pattern is customized to your body measurements. I was excited to see how it would work.
After you select your pattern, you have the option of entering a series of measurements, from standard bust, waist, and hip measurements to things like neck, relative height of protruding point of the bust, and more. You can also choose whether to add in seam allowances, use English or metric units, and the size paper you want it formatted for.
Because I had never used Lekala before, I decided to do a quick muslin first to check the fit. When I slipped it on the proportions were good, but it was skin tight! I rechecked my measurements and realized I had sewn the seam allowances at 5/8" when they should have been 3/8". Because my main fabric had a good amount of stretch, I decided I would just move on to my garment.
Lucky that my fabric did have a good amount of stretch because the final dress was very fitted. A little too much so, actually. While it is comfortable to wear, I felt a bit like a sausage, especially the way it really cupped my lower belly. Hmmm, maybe there's something to be said for being too fitted. I shortened the darts a bit past the waist, and may also try to let out the seams a bit more if I can manage it.The only other issue I had to contend with was my swayback, which is always an adjustment I have to make. Even with the custom measurements, there was still some wrinkling at the back. I took the back dart in a bit, but of course that also made the dress a bit tighter as well.
I also found that the sleeves were comically large. I don't have a picture but they stuck out like shoulder pads from an 80's space adventure movie. I took about three inches out of the center raglan seam to bring down the volume. They now sit much better on my arms. I have heard that automatically-graded patterns like this can have some weird anomalies.
I am curious to try Lekala again. The patterns are just $3, so there's no harm in experimenting a little. Perhaps I need to add more ease into my measurements, or maybe the amount of ease varies by pattern. Have you tried Lekala or Bootstrap patterns? Any advice?
In the end, my dress turned out really lovely (thanks mostly to the gorgeous fabric). I see some more experimenting in my future...
