Sewing a brique Freya dress (Tilly and the buttons)

Hey! After the 1st opus on Freya, the t-shirt; Here is : Freya, the dress! I will not go back to my crush on this book, I already made you for the t-shirt and dress Bibi. But this time, I sewed the dress Freya with pleated ruffle, which was the model that had caught my eye at the base. Logic, when you hold us.

I expect a bit of a horror scream from the sisterly side … but here are the pictures!

OK, first things first: 5€! What can beat that?

Freya dress pattern

From the book Stretch! Tilly and the Buttons so he’s no more complicated than the pattern of the top … just longer! (the metric length, not the time … well, the time too, but that’s the fault of the ruffle. Anyway.)

The ruffle is presented as a variant in the book. This is usual in Tilly’s books, there are basic patterns + suggested variations for each. Not really complicated to sew, you just have to take your time to make the folds.

The variant is to cut a looooong strip of fabric (or several like me that you sew together) and to fold the pleats at identical intervals on the curve that you have drawn on the dress (as you feel it, the book does not give a pattern for that).

Here, I advise you to cut a template in a piece of cardboard (easier than measuring with a ruler) and to take your iron and pins with you.

5 hours later (no, I’m exaggerating), you fix it all with a straight seam. Well, I used the special “flash” stretch seam of my machine but I have the vague impression that it was more boring than frankly useful.

Which & how much fabric for the Freya dress?

So clearly, turn to a milano knit, a ponte de roma or simply a cotton jersey with a bit of elastane for resilience.

Here, I took a milano knit, it’s great. And brick red because I discovered a passion for this color late 2018 when I made these fabrics purchases (and it’s not over!). But I stopped now. Really.

Finally, the best for the ruffle is to have a double-sided fabric that doesn’t fray. Otherwise, it will be immediately more painful to cleanly finish it (or more ugly if you don’t).

Yardage for the Freya dress: I didn’t use the 2 m indicated in my table at the page’s top nor the 1.7 m indicated in the book. A little less, but I did not measure exactly. I would say around 1.50 m.

Concluding on the Freya dress

I don’t see any bad point except that the fact that it has no pockets. Yes it’s sad. And boring. Still, I tried to put some on. Bad bad idea. I had to unpick et sew it all again but what a sewing project would be without it’s reaper moment?(I’m waiting for your answers there)

My days in Freya dress are therefore days where trips to meetings with my computer, my phone, my tea, a notebook and a pen look like the Cirque du Soleil. Yoop-la.

PS: Please, do not advise me to take a bag. I thought of it. I just find that moving around my office with a bag is weird. To each it’s own.

And also, the ruffle is a bit of a pain under a cardigan.Well.

Last word: a dress as easy to do than to wear with a little twist that makes all the difference!