The twirly princess dress

Sometimes you bump into a fabric and immediately know what to do with it. When I found over 10 metres of this lovely chiffon in the factory remnant bin, I was reminded of an amazing pattern I had seen on Etsy. The pattern was Princess Dress Nova by Thisiskachi. This dress with its super twirly skirt was something I fell in love immediately but it needed a huge amount of fabric. Thus, I hadn’t bought the pattern before I had the material to work with.

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About the pattern

The PDF pattern for this dress comes in sizes XXS-3XL or 32 to 46 in European sizing. These corresponded to bust measurements 78 cm-106 cm or 30.7″-41.7″. My measurements were closest to the size L (40) which is also my regular clothes size nowadays. (Although the size 40 is often labelled medium and not large.) The given measurements were a bit large at the bust and small at the waist but it was clear that I needed to make a mockup.

The fabric requirements stated 8.5 metres of 140 cm wide fashion fabric. You also need backing fabric if you use sheer chiffon, interlining for the bodice, interfacing and interfacing tape (I skipped some of these), a zipper, elastic, boning and optional bust padding.

This pattern is definitely and advanced pattern and I wouldn’t recommend this for somebody, who hasn’t sewn a lot. The instructions are pretty clear and there is also a video tutorial but I’m not sure if those went through every single step. I myself am not a person who follows instructions as I usually know what I’m doing.

Making it!

I had over ten metres of this floral chiffon fabric in two pieces. Besides the pattern, I liked the invisible selvedges that the fabric had. I definitely wanted to use them for the ruffles!

Mockup process

I started with the bodice mockup that I made out of very sturdy cotton twill. The first mockup revealed that the neckline came way too low.

I lifted the neckline about 3 cm. This also meant that I had to modify the ruffle pattern. I also did small chances to the princess seams but nothing major. After these changes the bodice fitted nicely:

The bodice

I decided to underline the bodice with black lining fabric to match with the black background of the chiffon. Then I added black cotton twill as the interlining to bring structure to the bodice. I interfaced the interlining pieces but with that amount of structure, I decided to skip the interfacing tape. There was no way that my seams would stretch after all that! I basted these layers together and sewed the bodice. The boning channels are stitched through all the layers and they are meant to show. I used cable ties for the boning. This is a trick I learned from historical costumers and I’ve started to use it as cable ties are cheap and easy to find locally. They work just as well as regular boning.

This is how my bodice looked from the inside after I notched the curved seams and added the boning:

On my dressform the bodice looked like it fitted fine.

Unfortunately I wasn’t happy. After staring the fabric on my wooden floor, I felt that the black underlining dulled the bright colours of the flower print. Well, I had lots of fabric to spare, so I decided to test what would happen, if I used golden toned underlining instead. See the difference:

Oh well, it was just one days extra work to make another bodice with paler underlining and I was much happier with it.

The skirt

The skirt is a gathered circle skirt with a slit at the left hip going all the way to the waist. The lining is a shorter circle skirt and goes down to the knee. The gathers at the waist create lots of volume and are the key achieving the twirl effect. I sewed the skirt on before adding the ruffle and let it hang overnight to be able to even out the hem.

The pattern suggested cutting 14 metres of ruffle in 10 pieces that were to be sewn into a long ruffle. I had two over 5 metre long pieces with those invisible selvedges (see below) and I decided to cut three long ruffle pieces from the selvedge edges. (Yes, I had planned my fabric usage before cutting anything, which meant the I had left the selvedges untouched.) Thus, I had over 15 metres of ruffle. I then used my rufflerfoot to sew about 1.5 cm from the edge. Unlike the pattern, I fastened this ruffled selvedge edge to the top of the hem so I had this extra ruffled bit for decoration.

The sleeves and collar and the corset back

The collar flounce was a troublesome beast to tame! First, my serger broke down and even after I managed to fix it, it didn’t like this fabric at all. It wanted to pull the fabric edge too tight no matter how much I fiddled with the knobs. Finally, after several tries, I gave up with the serger and finished the edge of the flounce by zigzagging black lace on it. I trimmed the fabric edge under the lace and dabbed some fray check on it to prevent it from fraying.

For their part, the sleeves were easy. I sewed them with French seams and added black elastic to gather the cuffs. Then, I finished the cuffs with the same lace that I used on the collar.

I lined the bodice with black lining. After some thought, I slipped two little bust pads in and attached them with a few stitches to the seam allowances. I was able to attach the neckline with my sewing machine but the waist and the sleeve edges had to be sewn by hand.

Then it was finally time to figure out the closure at the back. I had bought an invisible zipper and I sewed it on. However, when I tried to close the zipper over the bulky waistline (Remember all those layers on the bodice doubled because of the seam allowance!) the zipper broke. Rather than buying a sturdier zipper I decided to rely my historical sewing skills and make a corset lacing at the back. For the corset lacing, the strong inner layers were an advantage. I added extra boning channels to the edges of the centre back opening and then added the lacing holes. A black satin ribbon completed the back.

I hemmed the dress and checked the fit. There were two remaining issues. First, the neckline gaped a bit. Then the front of the bodice wanted to collapse vertically at the centre front. The first problem was easily addressed: I took silk sewing thread and sewed a running stitch to the lining side of the front neckline. I pulled thread just a tiny bit to remove any gaping and anchored the ends to the corners of the neckline. The collapse was probably due to the bodice being just a tiny bit too big at the bust. However, I wasn’t going to rip it into pieces anymore. Instead I sewed an extra boning channel to the inside of the centre front. This channel doesn’t show to the outside but it goes all the way up to the neckline. This keeps the bodice straight and fixes the issue.

The finished dress

I love how this dress turned out.

The side of the dress

The corset back really suits this dress well and I’m happy that the original zipper broke.

And you must see how the skirt twirls:

I was super happy with the pattern and how the finished dress turned out. I like that there are patterns that are more advanced like this so that I can challenge myself. I don’t often use polyester chiffon and most of the structural bodices I have previously made have belonged to historical costumes. It was fun using my skills to make a modern dress!

Don’t forget to check the Princess Dress Nova pattern on Etsy!

Thank you for reading and see you soon! Happy sewing!

Katja