By Hand London Jenna Dress

 

 

Pattern: Jenna dress

 

 I first heard about By Hand London a few years ago, but this my first time trying out one of their patterns. The sleeves on the Jenna dress drew me in. The lemon fabric I found was the icing on the cake. By Hand London on their blog has one of the best tutorials on how to sew an invisible zipper.

 Adjustments:

I did a narrow shoulder adjustment, small bust adjustment and prominent shoulder blade adjustment to the bodice. I made quite a few practice bodices to test out these adjustments. I have never after all this time sewing made these adjustments to sewing patterns even though I have needed them. I used the By Hand London Bodice Fitting Companion eBook and watched Alexandra Morgan’s video on the prominent shoulder blade adjustment. 

This was not the first I have attempted the narrow shoulder adjustment, but  I was never able to correctly use the popular method of doing a narrow shoulder adjustment. I liked the method By Hand London had in their book. 

 

 

Minor Changes to the Pattern:
 

I drafted a facing for the bodice neckline because I didn’t want to add a lining. I added stay tape to seam where the bodice and skirt connect since I read someone’s review that the waistline had stretched out.  I also interfaced the center back seam to stabilize the invisible zipper on the bias skirt. I used both the instructions provided with the pattern and the sew-along.

 

 

 

 

I learned a lot about making pattern adjustments while making this pattern.  I am grateful for all the resources I used since my dress would not have turned out the way I wanted without the adjustments. The pattern didn't have anything wrong in the drafting that caused me to need these adjustments. I am just far from average and needed the pattern to fit my unique body.