This dress is full of drama! I’ve come across this style of dress, full of volume and lots of ruffles on my Instagram and Pinterest and have been dying to create something fun yet not too over the top.
Choosing the pattern
I’ve seen a few versions of the Flor dress and it immediately caught my eye on The Fold Line recently so I definitely made a spur of the moment purchase and decided to get this pattern. The Flor dress sewing pattern is romantic wrap style dress that has shoulder ruffles, princess seams and waist ties. The pretty pattern by Bella Loves Patterns is actually drafted for woven fabrics, but I took a risk and used a rayon poplin!
Choosing the fabric
I was gifted this gorgeous Trans-Pacific Textiles fabric from an online Singapore fabric shop Modes4U that ships internationally! Scrolling through their website you can see so many different fabrics that cater for any fabric you might be searching for! This pretty tropical leaf print which is part of Modes4U’s flower collection stood out to me right away and I knew it would make a perfect holiday dress.
This emerald green fabric is a rayon poplin that has a large tropical print in white. It’s very soft in person and went through the first wash absolutely fine. I love the fact that although it is a rayon fabric, it’s not see-through and you can get away with not wearing a bra. When initially holding up the fabric to my body, I wasn’t sure if it would be too lightweight to hold the ruffled shoulder but I feel the easy wearing nature of this fabric adds to the effortlessness of the outfit and would make a perfect evening or day dress on holiday. I imagine this fabric would make the perfect slip dress, pajamas or anything that you want to look stylish and be comfy. If you’d like 10% off your order use the code: TammyHandmade at checkout.
Construction
I’ve never made this pattern so I decided to sew a standard size 8. I have to say that the instructions for this are really easy to understand and have illustrated steps to help those that need more support than written alone. You do have to cut out a million pieces for this dress and I really felt my back after bending over the floor, cutting this out whilst watching Titanic. The top comes together really quickly and the ruffles aren’t as daunting as you might think! They do require a lot of fabric but the end result really is gorgeous. I found the skirt simple to put together too, but my fingertips were shredded after all the gathering! I made no adjustments to this pattern apart from taking off maybe 6″ from the skirt. This is because I didn’t want a long dress and I only had 3 metres of this fabric so was trying to squeeze as much as I could out of it!
I adore the end result, the ruffles and the gathered skirt adds such a fun touch! I will be making this out of a woven next time and possibly using a bright red to make it feel even more playful. I’ve been getting into ruffles recently and sewing a wrap dress like this is nice and easy for beginners that don’t want to fuss adding zips or buttons!
