A big grey Fail of a dress

How excited was I to discover that the Spanish-language pattern magazine, Patrones, had launched an app complete with digital issues and downloadable pdf patterns!? You know, the thing we'd all wished Burda had done years ago rather than the abomination of a website they made instead! I literally was on my iPad in seconds (there's a version for Android, too) and was browsing the previews of a few issues when I came across a dress I just had to have!

How excited was I to discover that the Spanish-language pattern magazine, Patrones, had launched an app complete with digital issues and downloadable pdf patterns!? You know, the thing we’d all wished Burda had done years ago rather than the abomination of a website they made instead!

I literally was on my iPad in seconds (there’s a version for Android, too) and was browsing the previews of a few issues when I came across a dress I just had to have!

I loved this asymmetric dress enough to buy the whole issue (no407)!

Each pattern comes as its own download with instructions in Spanish (easy enough to Google Translate, but not illustrated so you’ll need to know what you’re doing) and an at-home pdf pattern (no Copy Shop versions). The pattern pdfs are only a few pages (yay!) but with the pieces overlapping so they have to be traced (boo!). And since this dress is asymmetric, the pieces were enormous so were split across 3 different traced pieces on the sheet. So it took me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to trace and piece together the pieces. In general, I don’t mind tracing, and I don’t mind piecing pdf patterns, but it is such a drag to have to do both.

I loved the design enough to buy fabric especially for it, too – some grey viscose crepe and a coordinating floral stretch crepe from my local fabric store, Fabrics Galore, who are happily still shipping online orders! The fabrics themselves are super lovely and I feel bad they ended up in such a wadder of a project that I’ll never wear…

Technically speaking, there was nothing wrong with the pattern apart from the neck opening being too small for me to physically pull over my head! The stretch of the floral crepe was the only thing that even allowed me to get it over my head for this photo!

I lowered the neckline before finishing it off with some self bias strips, so no biggie there. The godet in the side skirt panel was a joy to sew and topstitch, too, and looked just as neat on the inside.

But ultimately, this dress is just a tube. No darts or shaping anywhere, and nothing rotated into the diagonal seams that I could see, either. There’s not even a zipper to help with that tight neckline, and by this point it wasn’t helping my enthusiasm for this project when I discovered the sleeve cap had a grotesque amount of ease in it…

I sewed this dress at the start of lockdown, straight after my birthday knot dress, when stress was fairly high and we hadn’t sorted out our lockdown exercise equipment yet so I was already feeling overweight before this dress confirmed the worst of it.

This tube of fabric does me no favours whatsoever, and no amount of neat stitching is going to fix that!

I’m just glad I realised what a Fail it was before I used one of my imported buckle-cover kits for the belt! This one will be going straight on the donation pile in the hopes that it will find someone that it better suits.

I have no ill will towards Patrones for this, mind – I’ve sewn TONS of their patterns over the past 10+ years and have many garments I absolutely love, so it was just bad luck that this one turned out to be a dud. I’ll still continue to get excited when the previews of each issue appear on the iPad app and I can browse through the tech drawings for any gems. There’s also a free issue (407 I think?) that you can download to try it out!

13 Comments

Add Yours
  1. 1
    SanMom

    The design and fabrics you used are really nice. Too bad it doesn’t fit properly, in spite of all your alterations.

  2. 2
    Kate

    Your fabrics are beautiful! I would deconstruct it and sew them up into something new. As far as the style I always hold some reserve when I see the model (skinny one at that) blocking her hips and belly with photo props. That usually means there is the or the potential for a lack of flattering fit. esp. if one happens to have a less than model perfect figure. We all need a flop once in a while to really appreciate all the great ones and to learn that; yep – that style is not for me!
    Cheers!

      • 4
        Charlieo

        I think you could salvage by cutting a larger godet, if fabric still available. The sleeves look too long on you, n the armseye too tight. Since you have all the gathering on the sleeve head, reduce the seam allowance n insert into a larger armseye. Personally, I would shorten the hem. Beautiful fabric n sewing. Set it aside n come back in a couple of months. Lovely work.

    • 5
      Karey

      I’m too much of a tube with boobs to make anything without shaping, so avoid garments like this. Burda shows how a couple of darts (hidden or otherwise) make all the difference. It also makes it easier to do an FBA without messing up the style. But I trace anyway, and as I’m used to tracing Burda magazine patterns, and I love idea of pieces lapped on top of each other, especially if you can choose layers, rather than printing 40 pages. I am thinking about buying a projector just to avoid all the printing, but would prefer this option.

  3. 7
    Susan

    First, I agree with your assessment of the Burda site. And they really need a better site. I can’t seem to find it locally on newsstands. And trying to order a subscription is just as impossible.
    I love your choice of fabric for your Patrones dress. It has been beautifully sewn. It’s unfortunate it didn’t turn out. I think it looks decent from the side-but what is going on with the back. It looks like all the fabric ease(?) was placed in the back instead of throughout the circumference of the garment.
    I think you should buy some more of the same fabric and make a different dress. I really think you made a good choice with that selection.

  4. 8
    Sarah A

    This is so helpful- I’m starting to find posts on “what didn’t work” are some of the most instructive to read! Because it’s so easy to get drawn in by the beautiful pattern photographs. I made some pants from the free Patrones issue (406?)- I think they turned out well!

  5. 9
    Olga

    I’ve just looked it up on the app (yay!) and I think they use quite a beefy type of jersey for their version, your fabric is much lighter… That might affect the fall of the dress … (Personally, I never make anything without darts, but that’s just my body type, so I can’t say anything about that particular dress, although Patrones works well for me, once adjusted for my ginormous height)
    But I really like the app, no hassle with international mail (and cheaper), and since all patterns are printed individually, tracing is less confusing than from a magazine sheet…

  6. 10
    Frauke

    oooh, thank you writing about the app, just installed.

    I hate it when a project just looks nothing like I envisioned, so frustrating!

    I think the model is wearing a larger size than her measurements (look where those shoulder seams fall!) and the sample is made in one of those magic beefy (stretch?) crepes with “heavy” drape that never wrinkle or cling. Some fabrics make patterns look better than they are (also, she’s a model and it’s her job to make stuff look good).

    • 12
      melissa

      Oh yeah, I definitely considered that but the pieces took up most of the 9 pages and two of the dress pieces were cut up into 3 separate parts to join so doing that would’ve been like, ooh, 8-9x 9pages to print? Not really a time saver for this one…

  7. 13
    Teresa Leite (Tany)

    Well, you know that asymmetric top I’m working on? There’s no way I could put it on through my shoulders without a side zipper (not even mentioned in the instructions) , which BTW I’m definitely installing. If I was to sew the pleats as the instructions say, the side seams wouldn’t be trued. I guess they don’t test the patterns… They interpret a given design, draft the pattern and that’s it, at least with some of their patterns…

Leave a Reply to Olga Cancel reply