This dress that I made back in January has turned out to be one of my favourites for 2021 – although we are only half way through the year!  It’s a pattern mashup between the Style Arc Hope and Nova dresses.

I sewed both the Hope and Nova dresses last year, and really liked both of them. As most of you know, there is a multitude of loose waisted, tiered skirted, puffed sleeved dress patterns around at the moment (and the shops are full of them too). Rather than buy yet another pattern, I figured that I should just use the bodice of the Hope dress with the skirt tiers of the Nova.

My patterns were both size 12. This time around I cut the back bodice of the Hope dress on the fold, as I knew that I would be able to just pull it on over my small head. I incorporated a high rounded upper back alteration, lowered the front neckline 5/8″, and finished it with bias binding rather than using the supplied facing pattern pieces.

From memory I used a slightly wider elastic in the sleeve hem casings than suggested. I prefer the look of wider elastic at the moment, but there’s a fair chance that I selected width based on what was available in my stash.

I used the Nova skirt pattern pieces, each of them shortened an inch (maybe it was two). I already knew that I liked the gathering ratios in the Style Arc pattern. Unfortunately I forgot that this was a directional print until too late when constructing the dress and managed to have the back panel of the lower tier upside down. I didn’t realise until the entire skirt was constructed, and decided to just leave it as it was. The amount of deconstruction that would have been required to fix it didn’t pass my cost-benefit analysis!

Speaking of fabric, this is a light cotton sateen from the Holli Zollinger for Nerida Hansen range, bought at The House of Cloth in Bendigo when we visited late last year. It’s soft and as lovely to wear as it was to sew with, and has held up well to washing.

Every time I wear this it gets loads of compliments. It’s one of those times where the fabric and the pattern just work together perfectly! It’s superbly swishy around my legs as I move, and can be worn comfortably through a range of temperatures.