Love Notions has tons of great patterns. They are currently increasing the size range of some of their older patterns, but the Tessa Dress in still in the smaller size range. Lucky for Momma Mia, she fits on that chart! I decided to make this dress, because I had these fantastic prints and wanted to make a color block dress.
Let’s start with the fabric! These are my strike off prints from Stitchin’ Pretties. They came with a lovely hand written note saying they would love to become a dress. 🙂 Sneaky hints, yanno. So I decided I would see if I could fill that request. At first, I though I would make a Willow Cross front dress, but was a wee bit nervous because these two fabrics are a notably different weight which made me a bit nervous. I thought I would do one half of the bodice in each color, but talked myself out of it. I decided Momma Mia would get a new dress. I ended up choosing the Tessa because I loved that it was already perfect for some colorblocking.
I knew I would put the heavier weighted fabric at the top and use the rest for the body. That was 100% my plan until I forgot to cut the body as a mirrored pair. Ugg. I could have screamed or cried!! I have talked several times on my blog about how Momma Mia doesn’t like crazy prints. I knew color blocking the back of the dress was going to be a risk, but you can’t uncut fabric! Here we go! Snip Snip, Snip! I have a new back dress panel! This dress actually sewed quickly, as it is just typical sewing, no fancy techniques even though it looks awesome!
So these trendy prints are from Stitchin’ Pretties. I love love love the quality of the fabric I get there. Laura ships within a day and offers great pricing with exceptional customer service. There is almost always great deals to be found in the clearance tab as well. Today I used Jane and Martha. Jane is the brown and blue striped fabric. It is a poly lycra blend which means it has great recovery. Martha is the name of the dots!! This print is a mid weight ITY and sewed up nicely. I love this print because “Who doesn’t love dots??” You can shop here.
Let’s talk more about Tessa. This is a knit sheath dress with loads of options. You can choose from 2 necklines, scoop and boat neck. This is the scoop. There are 5 sleeve length options including this one, which is 3/4. There are two hem length options as well. I choose the long, but there is a knee length dress option too! The back seam allows for some contouring (or colorblocking.) You can also mash the Tessa with the Sybil skirt collection for even more options!
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