By Hand London - Anna Dress

Thanks for your comments on my red shorts.  I have worn them a lot already and I have a yellow pair in the pipeline.

As you can see, I finished my Anna Dress.  I hadn't seen this pattern until I visited the Sewbox online shop for something-or-other.  As soon as I saw it I bought the pattern.  Not because I want to make every single By Hand pattern there will ever be, just for the sake of it, but because I really like the style.

I made it in an embroidered eyelet fabric I had in my stash, but I didn't have enough for the long version, which is the one I wanted to make.  I still think I would prefer the longer version and will make it as soon as I have the fabric.  Having said that, I do really like this dress a lot, even though it's not the long version.  I chopped about 9 cm off the length of this, as it was a frumpy in between length on me otherwise.

This is such a quick make, it really is.  It didn't take me much more than a couple of hours.  As usual for By Hand, this pattern is well drafted, and comes together perfectly.  I would like to make a couple more of these.  This is a simple but stylish dress that skims the body in just the right places!  The armholes are roomy enough to be cool but not enough to show my undies, and I really like the shape of the sleeves a lot.  The best bit, though, are those pleats under the bust.  Just look!  Perfect.  Actually, I might make a top out of the bodice.  Hmm...

I took so many photos, trying to get some detail to show in the black fabric.  In the end, I had to put the dress on my dress form and photograph it in my undies, after some jiggling with the camera light metering.

Here are some more photos:

Sucking everything in for a (sort of ) side view!