Amelia Tea Dress

Reviewed by Juska on 5th April, 2018

This dress has a vintage 1940s feeling with gathers at the shoulders and an A-line skirt. The front waistline has a beautiful shirring detail. The original dress had two different kinds of short flutter sleeves but I decided to modify the sleeves to make it more suitable for winter. The sizes go from UK 8 to 20. I made the size 10 that fitted without any modifications.

The pattern suits for fabrics with drape such as viscose, crepe, silk or cotton lawn. I used mustard yellow floral viscose that suited the pattern perfectly.

The pattern called for 1,85 m of fabric. I had 1,9 m of fabric, but my fabric was only 135 cm wide. I took the sleeve pattern from Orageuse Prague blouse and used it instead of the flutter sleeves that were not warm enough and wouldn’t have fitted on my narrow fabric. As the long sleeve pattern was narrower I was able to use it and gain some extra warmth. I did change the cuffs to narrower ones and move the slit to the seam to make it a bit easier and faster to sew.

This dress was quite easy to sew and I did not need to read the instructions. However, I had never made shirred details before and that part of the instructions was clear for me to learn how to do it. All in all it took me about 8 hours to sew the dress.

The finished dress fits very nicely and has a nice vintage feeling. However, I think it would look modern if you used a different kind of fabric. The shape of the dress is very flattering. This kind of A-line skirts are not really my thing (I have long back and narrow hips which are usually emphasised by this shape) but somehow the bodice and the shirring make the whole dress come together and it looks great even on me.

I can warmly recommend this pattern!