Scuba Zadie

Here it is! I’m so excited to finally be sharing my Zadie Dress with you! When Fabric Styles said they wanted to work with me, the latest from Tilly and the Buttons was the first on my list of suggestions because it’s perfect for trying different fabrics and swapping and changing them. 

Fabric Styles do some amazing prints; I used their Galaxy Print for my Moneta and I absolutely love it. There’s so many colours and the fabric was a dream to work with so I jumped at the chance of using more of their fabrics.

I chose this gorgeous black floral scuba with a plain black to make the contrast panels, I’ve never worked with scuba before and I wanted to try it as there’s so many vibrant colours and I like a challenge! 

The Zadie calls for jersey or Ponte fabrics but I figured scuba would work too. Thank God I was right! 

I’ve done a YouTube post on the Fabric Style’s channel about working with the fabric and how I found it. So check it out if you’re a scuba newbie like me (or even of you’re not!) Here’s a snippet of me chirruping away! 

In the interest of not being repetitive, I’ve written more about the actual construction here! 

I had a metre and a half of the floral fabric and a metre of the black which is what the pattern calls for and it fit perfectly. Though if you wanted to try the long sleeves, they’re quite big pieces so you would probably need another metre. 

There are some odd shapes going on in this pattern. If I was a real newbie I think it would have really confused me… It takes a bit of thinking about to make sure you’re cutting the right fabrics for the contrast you want. The PDF is a bit of a challenge too! 

I followed the Sewalong on the website. It is really comprehensive and I fully recommend using it if you make one. It makes it so so much easier! I tried to take my time. Even though it looks quite complex, it’s actually quite easy and a joy to sew because it’s so different. It comes together relatively quickly too, which suprised me. I think it’s because the fabric doesn’t fray. 

Coming along nicely

It was all coming along nicely until the neckline. The pattern says it has 10% ease and that you have to stretch it. I would argue that you probably need to make it a bit longer because I REALLY needed to stretch it to make it fit, which worked for Scuba but might look puckered in jerseys. You can see how much of a gap there was in matching up. 

I did mange to match it up though, using a lot of determination. It does make quite a nice neckline. Sadly, because I had to stretch it so much, the join of the neckline band moved and it’s now at the front of my dress, which is not ideal but I couldn’t unpick it all. I don’t think it would’ve taken the stretching again! 

If I was to make it again, I would probably make the neckband a little thinner too but that’s just personal preference. 

Another first for me was the raglan sleeves but they came together super easy too. If you know me, you’ll know I like a sleeve so the cap ones are a little short for my but I would have needed much more fabric for the long ones. Definitely next time! Speaking of next time, I think next time I need to cut it much smaller. I used my measurements and cut the size 8 (18/20) but it was massive. I had to take it in by 2 inches on both sides, which ruined the nice joins on the skirt pieces, which the tutorial says is the most tricky bit. Here’s how it looks before I had to alter it. 

It did once all line up, honest!

I was rather proud of myself but then I had to take it in, the size is so far out. If it was jersey I might have thought it has stretched but there isn’t enough stretch on the scuba to justify how big it was. I haven’t heard of anyone else having problems with it and I’m really not sure how it could be so off the mark. This is what I took off the sides . I then curved it in to my waist a little more too. 

I also had to take it in along the raglan sleeves at the back to take then neckline in. I still feel that it’s a little big but. I didn’t want to take it in too much in case the scuba got to clingy. 

The hem was also hugely long so I took about 4 inches off this; without this I would’ve looked very frumpy. 

So after many changes…  here she is. I wore this to Port Sunlight with my lovely hubby. If you don’t know it, it’s a lovely picturesque village, which was a purpose built village, which aimed to give workers of the Lever Brother’s factory quality houses to live it. It’s so beautiful. 

Pretty pleats 

We went in the Lady Lever Art Gallery too. 

I’m not sure I would rush to make this one again, it isn’t as flattering as I expected. Though she did grow on me throughout the day as I wore it, what do you think? 

 The scuba I would definitely use again though, I’m thinking of this nice green floral for a skirt for spring. If you want to hear more about the fabric check out YouTube here.