Hello again friends! Today I am writing about the Arum dress from Deer and Doe. This pattern is a simple kimono sleeve tee dress with gentle shaping from back princess seams.
Pattern: Deer and Doe: Arum
Fabric: blue floral linen from Mood fabrics
Listening to: Reply All (😍 )
Back in the day, I was ALL about fitted, full skirted dresses- if my waist wasn't accentuated I felt like a potato sack, and I was extremely self conscious about my hips being exposed so the full skirt was a must. Maybe it's getting older, or maybe it's living in the sweat bucket of summer in NYC but I am allllll about styles with more ease and relaxed fits now. I spend a lot of time outside in the summer because I crave the sunlight and I basically hibernate in the winter, but that means I require a few things from my garments. Namely, that they are cool, comfy, breathable, and when I get REALLY sweaty it is hard to tell. Clothes with more ease certainly aid in these goals, and this dress definitely checks all the boxes! The linen is super breathable and is thick enough that it actually doesn't wrinkle too badly just by existing on my body. One bonus of getting pretty sweaty though- natural steaming for wrinkly linen! (Gross... kidding.... kind of but not really. Seriously sometimes I think it helps the linen settle back into looking more pressed D:)
Grossness aside, this fabric is really great. After washing and drying (I always wash and dry linen before using it, no matter my best efforts it's only a matter of time before everything I own takes a trip through the washer/dryer.) it got relatively soft, and shrunk a bit such that it became mostly opaque. I was a bit concerned that the dress would end up being a little translucent, but it seems ok, maybe I'll avoid wearing it at night with flash photography though!
This pattern was great, very easy obviously, but came together nicely. There were no lengthen/shorten lines so I cut at the waist notches on all pieces and extended about 1.5 inches (the standard length I add to all patterns in the torso). I think I probably hemmed with a smaller hem than the pattern called for also- I often don't read that portion of the instructions.... Probably should! I generally finish things with french seams since I don't have a serger and I don't particularly like the way pinking looks for finishing. Recently though for some reason the little french seam tube has kind of been bothering me, so in this dress I topstitched the seam down about 1/8" from the seamline. The fabric is busy so you can't really see it, but I think it's a cute detail to add. I've been thinking of making this dress in a slightly stretchy fabric 1-2 sizes down for winter+tights and it might be something cute to add to that.
Per usual, my hatred of neckline facings won out (seriously, why do I hate them so much?) So I finished the neck with white bias binding. The hem and sleeves are just turned up and hemmed. Also, the pattern calls for a tiny pocket which is a detail that I love, but the fabric is already so busy I thought that a pocket would just look weird by messing up what pattern there already was. Anyway I decided to try and make the pocket blend into the designwhich worked out pretty well! (can you spot it?) Incognito pocket only has a slight bump where the pattern doesn't quite continue correctly. You can't really tell the pocket is there so maybe it was pointless, but on the other hand perhaps one day when I'm wearing the dress I will find something tiny and adorable that I can stick in there and it will be worth it! Anyway this dress makes me fantasize about sipping a cocktail somewhere tropical and beautiful by the ocean, and it's currently a muggy, sweaty, thunderstorm here in ny so maybe I'll go try to make like 1/3 of that dream come true. (ok, it's the cocktail)
