I am so excited to finally be able to share with you my favourite Olive dress!! Yes, I went absolutely over the top nuts with fussy stripe placement and pattern matching on this make and I couldn’t be happier with the result!
One of my favourite things about the Olive sewing pattern is how much it lends itself to playing with print placement. You can be as pedantic or as casual as you’d like with this pattern… but obviously, I lent towards pedantic this time haha. As soon as I saw this striped cotton linen (which is available in my online store here) I fell in love with it. If I were to describe myself in colours, this would be it!
I spent a lot of time carefully thinking about how I wanted to use the stripes in this dress, even to the point of cutting out three different v inserts till I found the one that has just the right stripe combination. This print is direction not symmetrical which did make some parts of pattern matching a bit challenging. The last time I worked with a directional stripe I was lucky enough to have centre front and back seams which meant I could make it look symmetrical, but that wasn’t really an option this time. I had to cut to carefully cut the back upside to make sure it aligned at the seams. The sleeve bands were a bit of an agonizing decision for me. In my heart I really wanted the bands to be the same, but forcing that symmetry really didn’t work with the rest of the print and looked weird. In the end I decided to continue the stripe pattern into the sleeve bands so that there is continuity and I’m honestly so happy with this decision! I never imagined myself wearing a dress with two different sleeves but I think it works with this one!
There were so many places to make sure that the stripes were matched, so I really didn’t rush and made this dress over a few days so I could give my best attention to each section. Now when I look at those skirt side seams and shoulder seams I’m just really pleased that I put in the time!
For the internal neckline binding and pockets I used a light cotton poplin so that it didn’t show through the front. You can’t really tell with these photos, but the white stripe is very slightly see through – which I don’t mind on the bodice, but bothers me on a skirt – so I ended up lining the skirt with the same white cotton poplin. A nice side effect of that is that it gives the skirt a really great weight and body.
Usually with my makes I have a detail I’d really want to improve for next time, but must admit that this time I don’t. I’m honestly so happy with this dress and plan on wearing it constantly in summer! Its my dream dress come true ;)
Make this look:
Dress pattern: Olive dress & top
Fabric: Striped cotton linen
Shoes: Swedish Hasbeens
