A Dress from a Dutch Pattern Book

I made a dress! I am just a little excited about it. I have been drooling over all the gorgeous creations popping up mostly on European blogs made from this book by Emma en Mona. I felt sad that I couldn't buy it anywhere in the USA, until I realized that my sister who lives in Switzerland can get it for me. (Duh!) She brought it last Christmas all wrapped up in pretty paper and made we wait till Christmas day to unwrap it. How cruel! :)


Each pattern is modified several ways to achieve completely different looks. This is the basic bodice with a semi circular pleated skirt. One of the variations included an awesome pleated detail in front.


The instructions are in Dutch, but the dress is simple enough that I knew I could do it without reading directions. Except, there was a picture of the dress with an arrow pointing to the bodice, the word "tip" and a long sentence in Dutch. Of course, I had to know what it was! I typed up the whole thing into Google translate and clicked enter. The translation was a mishmash of words. All I could make out was that  if I wish I can choke between layers! Gasp! I am generally a peaceful person (not so much when I am around my serger) and certainly try to avoid chocking anybody when I sew. I "ran" to my bloggy friend An from Straight Grain for an explanation. She kindly informed me that I skipped a word or two while typing. Oops. Turns out the suggestion was to add piping where the bodice is cut. Phew! I also learned that the same word is used for "sew" and "choke" in Dutch. 

 
The fabric came from my local fabric wearhouse. Love the place! They have a shelf with $2.99 per yard fabric. Usually it's nothing I am interested in, but the tribal looking print caught my attention. I was surprised by the high quality of the fabric. It's 100% cotton, yet it drapes and flows beautifully, almost like silk. It's also very pleasant to touch.  I want some for myself, though not sure what I would make. :) 




The back of the dress has an invisible zipper. I accidentally cut the back of the skirt on fold, so I couldn't extend the zipper into the skirt.  It's a bit tight to put it on, but overall not too bad. :)



Ania is happy with her new dress, and wore it a few times now. I was also informed that it was ok to make more dresses and not just pants and shorts. Yeah! Better do it before she changes her mind.


The whole photoshoot she was collecting "pretty yellow flowers" to bring home. It's all about perspective. LOL



10 comments

  1. I love the dress: the detail in the front and how the 2 fabrics match in colors. Happy that you are using thee book and on top learning Dutch :))) Ania is growing so fast, unbelievable!

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  2. The dress is beautiful! I love the print on the skirt!

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  3. Oh, this is so pretty! I love the colors and those pleats are so unique! What a fun pattern!

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  4. I hope you are busy sewing more adorable dresses, not choking! I could not help but giggle about that!

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  5. Lovely Olga...will have to check out that book!

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  6. Love your dress. I know that book. I ask for it to the other author in her blog, oontje and she, very gently, told me she can send to me the book, to my home! I forgot about it, I just remember now. I have other book in Dutch about skirts and had to translate it in Google. It was hard.

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  7. I like how your pleated bodice turned out. The pleated version has been on my list for a long time.
    Well, now that I know that 'sew' and 'choke' are the same word in Dutch, that makes total sense!!! Thanks for sharing that helpful info.
    I cannot believe you found that skirt fabric on the $2.99 shelf of the fabric warehouse, I have always never bothered to even look there, just walk by it assuming there wouldn't be anything interesting. Next time I will actually take a look!

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  8. Nice result! If you need more translations from the book, you can ask me. I'm from Belgium and I don't mind helping you out :-)

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  9. Love the colour and the coordinating pattern. And that invisible zip, nice job! She looks happy to be modelling it too.

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  10. LOL, this was oooo funny to read as a dutch-speaking person :-) I never even thought about it that the words sew and choke are the samen, but in fact they are! I'm learning from you! The book by Emma en Mona (Griet) is really GREAT8 Did you know she wrote a second book? also really great!!

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