The day I got fit up with Anna

It's time to talk about Anna. I fell in love with her some time ago but never plucked up the courage to bring her on home.... ;-)

There are so many amazing creations out there to lust over, take a look at all of these! Of course I am talking about the formidable and somewhat famous Anna Dress by By Hand London. Not only are beautiful variations plastered all over instagram, twitter and the web at large - it also made a couple of appearances on the last series of Great British Sewing Bee!

Having made a cheeky purchase look what beauty arrived...


 In addition to the pattern and instruction booklet, you also get a little fabric sew in label!


As noted in my previous post about Liberty fabric, I had saved a copious amount of reptile fabric especially for a floor length Anna dress. As I am now a reformed character, instead of diving into cutting, a muslin was in order to test the fit first! I set about this project thinking I would be in for another week or so of adjustments, but to my surprise there was very little to change and the pattern was quite true to size using the measuring charts provided.



The only things I did were to remove a bit of gaping at the neckline using Method 1 on this blog post by Phat Chick Designs. Nice and simple :-) As a result of the slight adjustment I then lowered the V a bit to compensate for the cm I took out. Love the bust pleats, makes a nice variation on usual darts. There was also a bit of a gape at the back neck so I popped a couple of darts in (BEFORE seeing By Hand London's own tips on how to deal with that! There is a whole sew-along on their blog which is very useful - if you choose to read it before making your dress :-/


I'd found some cheapo viscose fabric ages ago to make a wearable muslin and this is the result! Anna test dress #1


I completely disregarded any respect for pattern matching - what the hell - looks wearable to me right?! Actually cannot wait to make some more versions of this dress...

Have you tried this pattern? Would you like to? I'd love to know your thoughts :-)

Comments welcome below, come say hi on Facebook, Twitter, Bloglovin and now Instagram too! xxx

2 comments:

  1. Oooh -- looking good. I love the Anna pattern. The floor length version was gobs of fabric and I hated hemming it. I have made several of the short versions in a variety of fabrics. Reptile fabric?? Cannot wait to see...

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    1. In saw your maxi version its fantastic! Not sure why I love this so much, just do :-) The reptiles are up next week! Ive put a mini photo on instagram - subtle but the little creatures are defintely there!

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