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Dress Up Party – Pattern Review – Colette Crepe Dress

DressUpParty
This post is part of Dress Up Party. For contest rules, full details, and schedule, please click here!
Today’s post is from Julia of Stars and Sunshine.

Hi Sew Sweetness readers! My name is Julia, and I blog over at Stars & Sunshine. I’m an engineering graduate student, and I like to sew clothes, quilts, and bags – as well as make a little bit of everything. I’m so excited to be here today to share a review of the Crepe Dress by Colette Patterns.

crepe dress

You know how it seems like most patterns like dresses have names just for the sake of having a name – so you can talk about different patterns conveniently? Most of the time, pattern names (especially for garments) seem to have little to nothing to do with the actual pattern itself. The crepe dress, however, actually resembles a crepe in that it is a wrap dress!

Crepe Dress Back

The sleeves are a little unusually shaped on this dress, but they’re not especially difficult. Certainly not harder than normal set-in sleeves! It’s something cute and unusual about this pattern, and I have a lot more arm mobility than I usually do with normal sleeves. Gertie has a great Crepe dress sew along with videos that show all the strangest parts about the facing. If you’re not sure what the pattern pieces look like, you can see what I mean about them being unusual in this part of Gertie’s sew along. I made a bodice with the facings for a muslin, but I’m not generally a fan of facings and decided I’d take advantage of the lack of a zipper in this dress to leave out the facings and include a fun surprise…

Reversible Crepe Dress

I made it reversible! This actually wasn’t too difficult. I made two bodices (leaving the hole for the tie on different sides of each). I sewed one arm hole together, turned it wrong sides together (so as if one were a lining), and pulled the seam allowance through the other arm hole similar to the method in this tutorial, except that you can sew it all in one go. After opening it back up wrong sides together, I folded the neckline around to the bottom like a burrito and sewed the entire front and back neckline. I attached a skirt to each bodice, turned it all wrong sides together, and then sewed around the three edges of the skirts leaving a hole on one side to turn through. I left the hole in the side of the skirt that gets wrapped underneath – so the side that doesn’t have the hole to pull the armhole through. I haven’t actually finished it yet, because I might take the skirt up a couple inches, but no one can see it anyways! Voila – reversible wrap dress!

fs dresses sq

Here’s both sides of the dress. Remember how I’m an engineer? So nerdy fabrics like these are pretty much my favorite, and I was excited to get to work 4 of them into this one dress! The all black side has all kinds of math, physics, and chemistry equations and diagrams. The black and white side is the same atom fabric in two different colorways, and the tie belt is a bunch of elements from the periodic table.

Crepe Dress Sleeve

Overall, the dress was an easy one to make. The sleeves were intimidating, but not difficult. Setting in normal sleeves is usually my least favorite part of dress making, and I would take these sleeves over normal ones any day. They were harder to cut than to sew! The lack of a zipper to install was refreshing, even though I tend to actually enjoy that step. Plus as a wrap dress, if I eat too much food I can just loosen the waist tie! And if I spill something, I can just turn the dress inside out 🙂 I think the shape is flattering, especially the V in the back. I was a little worried about coverage since the back is technically open. Both back panels cover the whole width of the skirt, though, and I’ve worn it around for a full day in wind without any concerns. Will definitely be making more of these, probably mostly double-sided!

Crepe dress back tie

As far as pattern specifics, I originally cut a size 6, but after making a muslin I changed to a size 4 with a FBA (spread 1/2″). I made no other adjustments, which is actually a bit unusual for me at this point. The fit is really forgiving because of the wrap nature of the dress, though. I cut version 1 (but made it reversible), but there is also a version 2 which has a really cute sweetheart neckline. I also omitted the pockets from the side with the white skirt because I was worried about them showing through the fabric.

crepe dress atoms

 

Dress Specs:
Pattern: Crepe Dress by Colette Patterns
Modifications: FBA adjustment with 1/2″ spread, made reversible!
Size: 4
Fabric: Equations and Periodic Table from Science Fair by Robert Kaufman, at atom print by Sue Marsh for RJR fabrics.

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12 thoughts on “Dress Up Party – Pattern Review – Colette Crepe Dress

  1. Julie says:

    You are adorable. I love that it is reversible and I HAVE to get some of that fabric. I just ordered some with the periodic table on it but I’ve never seen that print before.

  2. sunhfarm says:

    This is a great piece. 🙂

  3. syltoy68 says:

    I love your dress! The idea of making it two – sided is just awesome to me. So much so, I went to Colette and purchased this and another pattern to make myself. What fabrics did you use to make your dress? Did you use the arm facing at all? I have to wait for my pattern to arrive, but I’m excited about this project! I make bags and cloths and refashion some old ones too. Thank you for your idea.

  4. lucilledupuis says:

    Ahhh!!! I had a wrap dress just like this many, many years ago. How I loved that dress!

  5. Rowena W says:

    I love the fabrics so much! Especially the atoms one – it’s so subtly nerdy, just my thing. And the reversibility is pretty neat too.

  6. Ella says:

    So love this! My math and science class kids would love this one.

  7. Becky says:

    Great pattern and dress!

  8. Allison says:

    Super cute! What a great idea!

  9. Sharon O. says:

    I love that you can get two entirely different looks with this being reversible! Great idea! I also love the fabrics. I didn’t realize what they were at first until I read your description. So cute!

  10. Sarah Jane says:

    I absolutely LOVE your crepe dress! Especially the fact it’s reversible (and your fun fabric too of course!)

  11. Allison says:

    Wow, what a great double-sided dress!! I love this pattern, but am not a huge fan of cap sleeves. Do you think it would work to alter it to be a simple sleeveless tank top instead?

  12. Susie says:

    Hi!
    I like that your dress is reversible! Do you by any chance remember how much fabric you used for one side? The envelope says about 4 yards which seems a lot. Is most of it for the ties?

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