Ottobre Magazine 5/2018 Lozenge Wrap Dress

Here is my first project of 2019! Ok, so I sewed everything but the sleeve hems in 2018 and then finished those up on January 2nd, so I’m counting it. This was my fun, knit palate cleanser between Christmas sewing for others and some major pattern testing I committed myself to in January (stand by for details!).

First things first, lets move past the name of this pattern, “Lozenge”. Something must have been lost in translation there. Let’s just call it a faux wrap dress. This garment was directly inspired by a dress I saw a waitress at one of my favorite restaurants wearing right before Christmas. She looked SO cute and I remembered this pattern was in the most recent Ottobre Magazine AND I happened to have this red sweater knit in my stash, so it must have been fate.  In all honesty, its almost exactly the same as the one she was wearing, no creativity here!

Once again, Ottobre did not fail to impress me with their attention to detail and fit! I really need to sew more of their patterns, I have four of their magazines now which means I have plenty of options. I traced a 50 though the bust, 52 through the waist, and graded up one size to a 54 through the hips. It was a little big through the bodice, but my fabric had more stretch than was required by the pattern so I was expecting that. It was an easy fix, I just basted together the bodice and then took it in as needed before attaching the skirt. I then had to stretch the bodice to fit the skirt, but it worked out fine and I reinforced it with clear elastic to bring it all back in a bit around the waist.

Due to fabric restrictions, I had to cut the back on the fold instead of in two pieces and seaming it. It is a straight seam, but the grain line is not parallel to it, so I guess there might be something about drape that I missed by doing that, but it turned out OK. The back bodice seam IS shaped, and it results in such a nice fit. I mean, DAMN. I have never had a dress fit this well through the back. I also added a little flare to the skirt by slashing and spreading so that it would be closer to my inspiration dress. I added 1″ at the hem in two places on both the front and the back, resulting in an extra 4″ of flare all around. I’m happy with how that turned out!

I had a bit of an Ottobre moment when tracing the pattern and had to turn to Instagram for support. Fortunately, many of my friends there are more experienced with pattern magazines than I am and were able to help me out. Basically, the front and back pattern pieces are both traced from pattern piece “4”, but they are slightly different. The front is designed to be cut on the fold and the back is designed to be seamed, which means there are different CF and CB lines that need to be traced. There are also two different grainlines for the front and back, which will need to be traced also. The easiest thing would probably be to trace this pattern piece twice, but I just traced it once and folded out the excess when cutting the back.

I went a bit off book with the instructions. The pattern directed a facing with strategically placed clear elastic reinforcement on parts of the neckline. I decided instead to finish it by serging some clear elastic onto the wrong side of the neckline then double folding it and topstitching it down with a chainstitch on my overstitch machine. This did result in some pulling at the side seams because this knit is quit flimsy, so I just reinforced the bodice side seams with clear elastic also and it seems to be working fine. It does pull a bit, but with this type of faux wrap bodice you have to decide if you want pulling at the side seams or if you want the neckline to gape. I don’t think its possible to avoid both!

All in all, this pattern is highly recommended and I see more versions in my future! Its just so darn cute and wearable.

Just the Facts:

Pattern: Ottobre Magazine Issue 5/2018 “Lozenge ” Faux Wrap Dress

Current Measurements: Bust: 45″, Waist 41″, Hip 52″

Size: 50 bust, 52 waist, graded up one size to a 54 at the hips

Fabric/Notions: Deep, deep stash

P.S. I’ve had to move photo taking operations back inside due to 2ft of snow on the ground, and I can’t get the camera far enough away to avoid the kind of strange perspective you can see in these photos. My torso looks longer than usual and my legs look shorter. I’ll have to fine tune my photo taking!