February is when Sydney swelters, so a sassy dress using Eliza M’s Wanda dress and some silky snake print from Minerva Crafts UK sounded sumptuous.

Then I read the magic word – Tencel. Love the feel and quality of this viscose. 
Grey is also great for pairing with black or white or a contrasting colour. Or anything really.

When you look at ‘Wanda‘ above, she demands attention so I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could be as sassy as ‘Wanda’.

Online I could only find one review by Sewing Angela. So I read this review thoroughly and made a test version as a top.

Piping
A dress this simple called for piping and Minerva Crafts has a pre-made piping I snaffled for this dress.  I do prewash my fabrics and this time I also prewashed the piping too. 

So the piping came out of the wash all crumpled but it ironed up like new #phew.

This version is a 12 size at the bust and 14 size from the waist. 

It’s Summer and everything sticks to me with the humidity so a flowy, tencel dress is what makes Summer events more fun.

The pattern:
This is the first Eliza M design pattern I’ve used. The pattern is printed on brown paper bag type paper so it’s firm and noisy. There was plenty of spare paper so I was able to trace off the bodice in the redrafted sizing with the adjustments I needed.

Adjustments:
Once I had the correct size, the two adjustments were folded out 2cm from the front bodice and took out 2cm from the centre back neckline, for a closer fit.

What’s to love about this pattern?
The neckline, the skirt style and the fabric. 

The neckline is a sweetheart style and the fabric just flows and flows.

The challenges
The instructions don’t have illustrations to show the right and wrong side of the pattern. Only RS and WS are used so I found it hard to double check my work as I sewed.

If you have a look at the pattern photos above, you’ll see there are no markings for the bust, waist or hips, so I worked that out for myself. I need these markings so I can paper fit quicker without making a test version.

The pattern has a waistband that gets sewn inside the dress. I couldn’t figure out how (steps 10, 14 and 15) and I added piping at the front seam so I didn’t use it.

The overall instructions made sense.

Conclusion
This is a great Summer dress made from a lovely Summer tencel fabric that I can dress up or not. I’m still glad that I’ve made this dress and definitely using tencel fabric. 

Thanks Minerva Crafts!
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