Adventures in band wagon jumping

I’m not normally one to jump on bandwagons. In fact I generally rejoice in being a bit of a rebel and not doing what everyone else does. At school I was mocked for being a saddo that didn’t know who any of the cool bands were, for not knowing anything about fashion and for not knowing anything about football (this was Scotland where football is akin to religion).

On leaving school and getting to University it became clear that none of these things really mattered and that I could follow my own path without feeling the fear of a group of nasty ass girls taking the pi$$ out of you for not wearing the right trainers. Since then I’ve generally rejoiced in following my own path and doing the things that I like no matter whether they are cool or not.

So onto the Zadie dress from Tilly and the Buttons – the latest bandwagon.

I don’t normally buy patterns when they are released. I prefer to wait until many many people have made them, have blogged about them and written endlessly about what pattern hacks they’ve made to make these patterns work for them.

So why oh why did I throw caution to the wind and buy the new pattern from Tilly and the Buttons? This is exactly what I asked myself as I unpicked and re-stitched the front together for the 2nd time. Its also odd behaviour given I’ve owned the Tilly book “Love at First Stitch” for years and so far only made 1 of the patterns which was a bit ‘meh’.

I blame maternity leave. I’ve gone back to work and started earning actual real pennies again and got a bit giddy with online shopping last month.

I also blame Tilly & co because it looks really cool. It’s kind of a silhouette dress depending on your fabric choices.

For my version I bought aubergine and misty mountain ponte from Fabworks Mills. It has a nice amount of stretch in it making it a good fabric for a pie-eating contest (or day to day life in my household).

According to Tilly’s odd sizing I’m a size 7. I find it a bit disheartening that as a UK size 14 I’m at the very upper end of this pattern size (it goes up to a size 8). As it is I’m confident I could go down at least 1 or 2 sizes in this. I ended up taking it in at the waist by 3cm on both sides.

Another edit I’d make next time is to lengthen the bodice. Never ever in all my puff have I needed to lengthen a bodice. I always always have to shorten bodices. This I think goes to show Tilly’s core market is petite people – I’m 5’5″ so definitely not a giant!

For me with the waist above my natural waistline it feels a little bit maternity-esque. It’s less than a year since I wore maternity clothes and I really don’t want to return so soon (ever).

So in summing up its a nice dress but not a perfect dress yet. Definitely for day wear slouching about and not evening wear.

OK but not amazing!

Look no cleavage! Appropriate for work and crawling on the floor with babies