Alice & Co Patterns Adele Apron Dress

I just finished making this.  I have a bit of a pinafore dress 'thing' going on at the moment so this fitted perfectly into my sewing plans.  I was attracted by the 'pinafore' style of the pattern but also the versatility of all the tie wrap and shoulder strap options - AND it has pockets!  Another big plus is you can get this out of 2m of fabric as long as it's at least 135cm wide - I know because I did it and I lengthened the panels in the skirt parts by 2.5cms.

Not the best choice of fabric - my bad.  I found some lovely Seasalt linen/cotton blend in my stash that I bought last year and thought it would be perfect.  I've attached a picture of the fabric as the dress isn't yet 100% finished - I've just ordered buttons from Textile Garden (love their buttons).  In hindsight my fabric was not quite hefty enough - so I would recommend going for a 100% heavyweight linen or a cotton twill or a lightweight denim for this - or something similar.

I made a size 20 at the bust grading to a 22 over the hips. This was easy to do except for the centre front panel where the different sizes are marked at the centre front where the pattern piece is cut on the fold - I've never seen this before. I didn't want extra width above the waist so I placed the size 20 line on the CF fold and added some width to the sides of the pattern piece below the waist.

The pattern instructions warn you of a possible gaping issue across the side panels - and boy did I have a gaping issue.  The centre front panel fitted well but there was 2-3" of gaping at th top of each side panel.  My linen/cotton blend must have grown a lot or maybe I should have sized down in the top to my high bust measurement and done an FBA.  But I wasn't sure how to do an FBA in a panelled dress with no side seam - the side panels wrap around the sides of the body covering a bit of the front and a bit of the back.  The instructions don't tell you to stay stitch until you have sewed all the panels together but another time I would stay stitch the bias cut tops of the side and back panels FIRST - there's little point once you've handled the fabric extensively as it's too late by then.  I ended up sewing some 6mm elastic into the folded over edges of those panels and that worked well to bring everything in and get rid of the gaping without having to unpick all the seams.

I'm not sure the inseam buttonholes would work in a lighter weight fabric either, though I can understand why eliminating sewn buttonholes would make this pattern more appealing to a beginner sewist.   However  I've sewn mine up because of my lightweight fabric and will add interfacing and put real buttonholes in just as soon as my buttons arrive.

If I was making this again I would chose a different fabric and even then maybe make a facing for the top and centre back edges to give the whole thing a bit more body.   Of course this would require a lot more fabric but if you had some to spare would be well worth it.  There is a good wrap over at the back but I'll also be wearing this with a slip as advised by Alice in the pattern instructions.