The Rosa shirt dress by Tilly & The Buttons had been on my ‘to sew’ list for a while. I love the fitted bodice with princess seams and a yoke and the two-piece collar. It’s the sort of shirt you can make to wear to the office or to wear casually at the weekends. I made a few fit and style adjustments and am really happy with the pattern I ended up with and will definitely make it again in the future.
Fabric
The pattern suggests a medium to lightweight woven fabric such as cotton lawn, chambray, lighter weight denim, needlecord, linen blends, shirting etc. I’ve made three versions now (two toiles and one actual garment). My shirt version was made from a polyester crepe type material in a pretty floral design, my first shirt dress was made from a pinky colour fabric – I’m not sure of its exact composition but it worked fine as a toile. My actual garment was sewn up in a cotton lawn which is lovely to work with; nice and stable and good to wear throughout the summer.
Fitting
Sizing wise I cut out a size three as my measurements fall into that size range almost perfectly. I sewed up my first toile (the pinky colour dress) and it turned out ok, so I decided to wear it for a while to see how it felt. I made it with short sleeves and after wearing it for a while I could feel that they were tight on the front of my arm whenever I stretched my arms forward. After searching in my fitting books for ways to solve this, the broad back adjustment seemed like the best option. I measured my back (horizontally from the crease of my arm on one side to the other), then measured the same position on the pattern. My back is 15” and the pattern was only 13.5” so it then became clear why there was an issue! I used one of the methods in my favourite fitting book – The Palmer / Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting – to amend the pattern – see the photo. I divided the difference between 15 and 13.5 into two and added that amount into the yoke as per the diagram.
I then sewed up my second toile (the shirt) to see if that resolved the issue. It definitely gave me more room in that area and made the shirt much more comfortable. I may even add a little bit more when I make my next version. I also made a couple more changes to the pattern but they were more style related than fit, so I will talk about those below.
Sewing
The sewing of Rosa could seem a bit intimidating with all of the princess seam lines, mock felled seams and top stitching but as usual with Tilly & the Buttons, the instructions are extremely clear and walk you through step by step. There is quite a bit of repetition in terms of the felled seams and top stitching on all of the various stages, so you get lots of practice on these techniques. The most difficult part for me was joining the back yoke to the back bodice. The yoke is pointed at the bottom so you need to pin each side together separately and snip into the back bodice to allow it to open up so you can pin and stitch the second side. My first attempt wasn’t that neat but by the third, it did get easier. If you are doing it for the first time and not making a toile, you might want to cut out some trial pattern pieces to test out that technique first in order to get it nice and neat on your actual garment.
Style
In terms of style, I love the bodice section of this pattern, the princess seams allow you to get a nice, fitted look. However, I quickly realised that the skirt section was not a style that I like. There is 6.5” of ease at the hip level which means that the dress is easy to move around in, but I prefer a bit less than that, so decided to remove some of the additional ease to make it into more of a straighter skirt style. I did that by putting my dress on the mannequin inside out and pinning down the side seams until I was happy with a more closer fitting look. I then transferred the pin markings to the side back and side front pattern pieces and cut off the excess. In addition, I also lengthened all of the bodice pieces to make the dress fall below the knee.
There are several other design features that you can add to the Rosa to change up the style. I made the ‘plain’ version, but you can add pockets, do contrast top stitching, add piping and more. You could also alter the look of the shirt by using different fabrics. A shirting fabric would be good for a formal, office type style for example, or go for a chambray to make a more casual weekend shirt dress.
In summary, Rosa is full of interesting features and useful techniques to learn, so if you haven’t tried her out yet, I would definitely say, give it a go!
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