Claudia in Paprika linen

I've had a run of projects like this recently, love the result but the pattern really pissed me off - this is the latest one, the Tessuti Claudia dress in one of those specially dyed linens from The Fabric Store, this is Paprika and I love the colour.

When I bought this fabric, I was originally planing to make a Tessuti Bondi dress but when I saw this I changed my mind. It reminded me of a dress I saw on Haley Boyd's instagram a while back and I had just made the Farrow, which is also a swingy, tent-like dress, and like the Bondi, this dress only

Now lets talk about the pattern.

This is the prototype, I think someone at Tessuti made it for their daughter and then graded it into a saleable pattern with instructions.

Isn't it lovely?

That cool midi length, side splits and that gorgeous close fitting strappy bodice. It looks effortlessly elegant but super comfortable at the same time. And pockets, you have to have pockets.

But you won't get a dress that looks like that from this pattern, you'll get something much looser, far higher necked, gaping under the arms and like most of the people in instagram who have made it, end up belting it or wearing a t-shirt underneath - see what I mean? I'm not going to embed other people's instagram pics here but you get the idea.

I actually swore off Tessuti patterns a while ago but I loved this design and I figured it was such a basic dress - front, back, pockets, straps and facings, that how annoying could it be?

Answer: pretty annoying, not because I couldn't make the fitting adjustments I needed but just the whole experience of using the pattern and discovering that the pattern really couldn't create the look in the picture at all without a lot of adjustments made me cross.

Firstly, the pattern itself. It's hand drawn, so each size is the same black line, there are no dots and dashes to differentiate. I never find Tessuti patterns assemble well, the tiles always end up growing a few millimetres as you add each row of pages. The join points often cover important markings, like darts and notches, and it just seems rather quite slapped together.

They do provide a copy shop option but that is also fraught with problems, it's one A0 plus one A1 sheet which is just way more wrangling of the gormless staff at Officeworks that I can handle. (A staff member there once insisted on printing a pattern on A3 paper not to scale because they said A0 was impossible, she then entered the dimensions manually on the printer but printed a vertical A0 page horizontally. I also once had someone print a page of Megan Nielsen's Flint pants on photographic canvas for me before a wiser colleague intervened.)

The front piece is made up of two pieces which have to be stuck together after the pdf is assembled, and this joining point is also the shorten/lengthen line on the dress, which is all very well but a) the line is above the split so if you want to make this dress knee length you could end up with a slip up to your waist and b) there is no shorten/lengthen line at all on the single back piece at all, so you're on your own there. This might sound petty but I think it's quite sloppy and could seriously confuse an inexperienced dressmaker, because despite the sacky style it is quite important that they are shortened or lengthened in the same spot front and back. The split has a deep mitred hem and if you don't cut for that, you are stuffed. The pattern just tells you to pick a spot to shorten the split yourself.

Then there's the obsession with frigging tearaway vilene in the Tessuti patterns. Urgh. I got sucked into this with the Tessuti Kate top, trailed out to buy it from a justifiably confused person at Textile Traders, dutifully sewed it around the neckline and armholes, tore it away and thought - what on earth was that all about?

For those who don't know (and why would you?) tearaway vilene is a kind of papery non-fusable interfacing type stuff that you can sew to necklines and armholes etc to stop them stretching out, then ripping it off at the end. The pattern maker at Tessuti is obsessed with tearaway vilene because either they have never heard of stay stitching or just prefer this. Which is fine for them, but it is an extremely niche method, a lot of fiddling about cutting and sewing to whatever area they think it needs. I really think stay stitching would work just as well, especially if you're working in a stable fabric, and they should offer this as an option in the pattern instructions.

I have mentioned it to sewing friends and they said "oh yeah, you just ignore all references to tearaway vilene" with Tessuti patterns. Well, now I know.

Also the instructions themselves - I understand making line drawings is laborious but must the instructions be of the garment created in dim light, using a fabric that does not have a clear right side and wrong side, with that hideous courier new font? Also the choice of fabric means they have to draw in red on each picture - right side, wrong side, which is great because we ALL have colour printers right? 

The instructions are basically fine, the pocket facing is nice and makes the whole things very neat and lovely. I do not understand this pinning method as it looks certain to break one's sewing machine or force you go insanely slowly, but hey, it looks pretty.

My major beef with this pattern is the bodice, I presume people are making this dress because they want that fitted look in the promo picture, with the tight, cut-away armhole. Well, I had to take two inches off the front bodice, and an inch off each side, front and back (so four inches altogether), to make this even remotely wearable without a t-shirt underneath, and even now I think I could have taken more. The neckline was above my collarbone as drafted and the armhole gape was extreme. I know all patterns have to be fitted and they can't design to fit everyone but seriously, no one is going to get the look in the picture from this pattern as drafted. If you didn't fit and adjust as you went along I think you'd be seriously disappointed with the finished product.

They also advise finger pressing but not ironing the first fold of fabric when you create the mitred hem of the skirt. This is about two metres of finger pressing a narrow hem, which is not easy to do neatly. It never becomes clear down the track why it is preferable to finger press than just use the iron.

After all that, I actually love this dress and wore it quite a bit before the weather started to cool down. I love the colour and the free flowing style, and in spite of the incredibly negative review, this wasn't difficult or frustrating to sew. There were just so many eye-roll moments and things to ignore and adjust.