Well I’ve finally sewn The Wildergown and this blog post is all about my my expereince making this well-known pattern. I recently have been doing a lot of travelling back anf forth the UK and Berlin and it felt like the perfect project to get me back into sewing after a little break!

Choosing the pattern

I feel like everyone and their mum has heard of The Wildergown by Friday Pattern Company and I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to try this pattern out. I think it’s because the style of dress is very flowy and I wasn’t sure such a high-neck and loose shape would compliment my body but I’m glad I gave this a go! The Wildergown is a pretty raglan sleeved dress that has a stylish tie detail at the neckline.

Choosing the fabric

I wanted to create this dress in a cotton fabric so it would be easy wearing and floaty. Fabriclore gifted me this gorgeous hand blocked cotton that has a pretty floral detail. If you’d like 10% off your order at Fabriclore use my personalised discount code FABTAMMY. I really love the deep red/brown shade of the fabric as I wanted to make something that would feel more autumnal. I was struggling to pick between this purple fabric from Minerva or the floral cotton from Fabriclore but I felt the illustrated flower print gave such a effortlessly casual yet stylish detail. 

Construction

Because I’ve seen so many other sewists make The Wildergown, I knew I didn’t want to make it super floaty and decided to cut out the smallest size (XS). You are meant to have quite a lot of fabric for the full-length version of the pattern, but I decided to make the short version. I found the instructions easy to understand and the top came together really quickly. I did cut out the skirt as suggested but once attaching to the bodice I found it still quite long as it touched my knees so I did go rouge and just cut off a chunk from the bottom to make it super short.

I wanted this make to be a little more playful so making it really short felt like the right thing to do as I imagine wearing this in Autumn/Winter with tights and a jumper thrown over. I love how this dress has turned out but I don’t think I’m a massive fan of the neckline once it’s all tied up. I much prefer the look when the neckline is open and the ties dangle to the sides. That might be because it’s already quite baggy so I wanted some of my neck on show otherwise the top half would have been super covered up.

It’s a very comfy and floaty dress but I’m glad I made this size as any bigger I feel would have drowned me too much. I also decided to make a matching Pisa Bow Bag with the leftover fabric for the lining and bow. It’s a very cute new pattern by Kate Eva. All in all, this dress was a successful make that I want to try again in a more flowy, see-through fabric to see how that would wear!