Hello there everyone!  Well, here we are, half way through January.  I am on holidays from work, and have to say that I absolutely LOVE being on holidays.  I really, really, REALLY needed this break.  Prior to this I’d had two weeks off work in the previous 18 months, and felt absolutely exhausted.  Now that my husband is working again I will be working three to four days per week in 2016 rather than full time (I juggle a permanent part-time job with contract work for other employers) and am really looking forward to that.  Having the last three weeks without any work commitments has been such a pleasure.  I’ve been able to do plenty of things with the kids – we’ve really enjoyed being tourists in our own city – plus plenty of things at home that I’d been putting off until time allowed but were strangely satisfying.  You know, things like culling and reorganising cupboards and drawers, sorting through papers, and general repairs.  I’ve also been doing loads of sewing.  Clearly what I haven’t been doing is blogging.

So I’m starting the year off with a garment that was the last thing I sewed in 2015 but the first thing I wore in 2016, the Tessuti Annie dress.  Their website describes it as follows: This loose, light maxi features front and back yoke with separate side panels and sewn in pockets. The dress is gathered beneath the yoke while the cutaway armholes extend into shoulder straps that create a sweet and flattering neckline. Suitable fabrics for the Annie Dress are light to medium weight linen, cotton, viscose, rayon and silk.

I have discovered that I enjoy wearing maxi dresses.  I like the swish of the fabric around my legs, and the protection that they give from the sun.  A loose maxi like this is actually very cool to wear on hot days.  The fabric is linen/cotton from Darn Cheap Fabrics, in a shade of vibrant orange that I particularly love to wear.

I generally have a great deal of success with Tessuti patterns.  After quite a bit of to-and-fro about what size to make, I decided to sew the Large.  This corresponded best with my bust measurement, and at the moment I am at the upper end of my usual weight range, so it seemed like a logical decision.  I should have gone with prior experience (and what other bloggers/instagrammers were saying about the sizing of this pattern) and sewed a Medium, like I usually do in Tessuti Patterns.  Although this dress is quite wearable this size, a slightly snugger bodice would have been better. You also need to note that this is a difficult shape for bras. The straps are cut in just enough at both the front and the back that neither a regular or a racer back bra will work without showing straps (well, none of mine would). I wore a strapless bra with it, as unlike my daughter’s generation I don’t like straps to show.

Although I sewed size Large in bodice width, I did reduce the bodice depth and strap length to a Medium knowing that I am short through the upper body. I left the dress length as per the pattern, and you can see that on my 158cm height it is definitely maxi length. I did manage to put the first pocket in upside down, but that was easily rectified with the assistance of my unpicker.

The pockets are a nice feature on this dress. I tend to leave pockets out of dresses unless they are a feature, and these definitely fit that category. They are constructed in an interesting way, and sit in place very well. The instructions for assembling this dress were excellent, by the way.

I really hope to get back into a better blogging rhythm this year.  I have many unblogged garments from the past six months that I want to record here.  Fingers crossed that I manage to carve out that regular blogging time!