Big thanks to French Navy for the Orla
Dress free PDF
pattern!
I've been looking for this kind of casual, comfortable and yet shaped dress, and after some failure, I have finally found the one.
Similar to the Hinterland dress, but more fitted to the waist, the Orla dress has the perfect amount of gathering at the waist, the perfect waist height and skirt length, at least of my body type and taste.
I made one small modification: giving a little more ease in the bodice sides, maybe a couple of centimetres in total, and a big one: cutting it at the centre front, and adding a button stand for buttons and buttonholes, to imitate the boho air of the before mentioned Hinterland dress.
The only thing I don't like about this pattern, and it is not a minor one, is the sleeves. They have too much ease at the cap, and it was impossible to smooth all that into the seam, specially in this thick linen, so I had no other option but pinching it. The angle of the sleeves, how they hang, is totally off. Luckily, linen is so wrinkly. that both pinching and of angles are covered.
These pictures were made in bad conditions, my tripod missed the piece holding my phone, and they all suffer the barrel effect, I look slightly wider than in real life. Also, I took them after working all day at my school with it, but that is natural! Anyways, the feeling I have wearing the dress (I can't see the back of my sleeves, haha...) is far better than these pictures.
I totally love it, specially in this wonderful green linen I bought in Coimbra this past summer.
I finally got to take pictures of this wonderful summer make. I made it in less than a week for our trip to Portugal in July, as I listened to the wonderful Where the Crawdads Sing.
This is the third rendition of a rubbed off pattern I made two summers ago and again last summer. Now I realize I am kind of in love with it.
I could not say which of the three I prefer, since the three of them are made with lustrous cottons, they are fresh, comfortable, becoming to my figure... perfect.
This one travelled for 18 days all pressed up in a bag in a cross country trip. I wore it in two or three occasions, folded again and put it back in the bag. When I got home, I took it out, gave it a little shake, wore it again, and it was perfect!
That is how nice this Japanese cotton is! I bought it, only 1 m is enough for this pattern, in Goldhawk road, in London. There was a small shop with several Japanese cotton at good prices. They are worth the last penny.
