The Daughter Judy Teague dress in this delightful strawberry cotton jersey fabric is a match I made immediately in my mind’s eye when I saw the pattern online.
Disclaimer: sponsored fabric in exchange for a social media post (this blog is because I want to tell you about the dress!). Jinny and Joe is a German based fabric store with fun prints they design themselves – and I’m a total sucker for food and fruit-printed fabric. I’ve done a few collabs with them in the last year – see some of my Instagram reels here and here – but having said that I also buy fabric from them for the kids. Their popular designs sell out quickly, so if you’re interested, subscribe to their newsletter so you know when the fabric drops are coming.
Back to the dress, I find it quite a challenge to find jersey fabrics and patterns that are to my taste: not too fitted (not my style), not too sack-like, or only for the weekend or beach only. Jumpers and cardigans I prefer the ones that look like they’re actually knitted rather than eg a French terry or drapey jersey cardigan. So you could legitimately ask: what do you like then? Well, normally just t-shirts or turtlenecks. But my answer today has to be: cotton jersey that’s fairly bouncy and the Daughter Judy Teague dress pattern! (which I bought myself by the way).
Daughter Judy Teague Dress – line drawing
The top is connected to the skirt at the centre front and centre back, with gaps for the side cutouts. There is a skirt facing which also acts as the channel for elastic to hold everything in place. The top has the front and upper back cut in one continuous piece. That makes for interesting seam lines which would be super nice for eg stripes. In the diagram below I marked in purple so you can see where you stick the small piece to the main body…
Modifications
Examining the sample and line drawing, I already know the top wouldn’t fit – I shorten the bodice on every single dress and jumpsuit pattern with a fitted waistline. And boy I’m glad I made a toile of this Teague dress because I ended up taking 5cm! from the bodice length and still achieve the blouse over effect despite that.
To further complicate matters, I also wanted to have the bodice 7cm shorter just at the side seams. And narrow the side seams as well, and change the curve of the cutouts a little. All this meant that what would have otherwise been fairly straightforward sewing became really time-consuming. And I butchered the pattern to make it work (sorry Chelsea if you read this) via pinning a bit here and there very unscientifically and trying it on 50 times as I went. But I guess you can say that part of sewing clothes is making them fit! In the end it worked out ok despite the time effort.
Other things I did:
To keep the print looking as continuous as possible:
- Cut the skirt on the fold instead of a separate centre back seam
- Attached the lower back panel piece to the upper back (i.e. in the diagram above with the purple line, I took the smaller piece and stuck it to the back instead). In doing so I eliminated the horizontal seam across mid back and ended up with a side seam instead.
But I failed to remember that cutting the front and back in one piece with no shoulder seam would result in upside-down strawberries! Never mind …!! I must say I do like the diagonal effect on the back which would look ace on e.g. a stripe.
Thankfully: the skirt fit perfectly. But I still had to toile the whole dress so I could see where would land relative to the top.
Construction
- Eliminated the neckband as I didn’t have ribbing (matching or contrast) that I liked, and tbh I thought the dress with this print looked slightly more “elevated” without it. So I just folded over the neckline and coverstitched. Good to put a strip of knit interfacing at the edge to stabilise the neckline but still retain stretch.
- Pattern asks for 2.5cm wide elastic at the waist but could be 3cm if you prefer a wider elastic. Or if you want to use something even wider if you find it more comfy – just make the facing/tunnel wider.
After 2 nights of experimental hard slog, I got a strawberry dress of dreams! A bit kitsch but feels quite cool at the same time and not excessively vintage-y. My husband’s reaction: did you forget to sew up the sides?! he doesn’t understand fashion.
Took myself to work in the dress and remembered to bring my mini tripod so I took my pictures at lunch with people walking past me. But tbh that doesn’t bother me anymore at all and I’m delighted with how the pics make me feel like one of those cool fashion girls that I follow on IG. Maybe I need to do more urban backgrounds?!
Thanks to Jinny and Joe for the fab fabric and I’m very happy to recommend the Teague dress by Daughter Judy as a pattern!
Till next time
Kate