The Lovely Lea Dress

I think patterns themselves have started seeking me out. "Psssst, have you heard about that girl who's always sewing things? The crazy one with the frog. Yeah? Let's go dance around on her instagram feed. I hear she has zero pattern resistance."

I stumbled upon the Lea dress pattern on instagram's explore function. This was highly out of the ordinary because the explore function makes me feel like an old fogey. The concept of searching for users and hashtags is understandable, it's not like google + were I still don't understand what the hell is going on. Circles? Connections? What?  Please take me back to my email now. The main problem with explore is that I'm old enough that the whole adding hashtags thing is not second nature. I have to constantly remind myself to add them to my pictures and I rarely think of them as a tool to find things. But enough about that, I think the Lea Dress auto popped into my explore feed anyway.

BAM! What is this vision I see before me? The technical sketch and I immediately started making bedroom eyes at each other. "So into you," might have been playing. I sidled my curser over to it and said, "Hey beautiful, you want to come home with me and let me glue your pages together?  Pretty sure it winked and did a little shimmy. That was all it took, it was in my cart and purchased about a minute later.

This was one of those projects were the fabric to use immediately popped into my head.  I was in love with all the seam lines and wanted to highlight them. I'd just unearthed a dress weight black stretch denim from the stash which would be perfect. All the dress needed was some red top-stitching to make the seam lines pop. I say that like doing contrast top-stitching is a piece of cake.  In reality many yards of red thread were massacred in the making of this dress by "Rambo" my seam ripper.  Froggie is in talks to build a memorial wall at the base of my chair to remember their thready sacrifice. Some red thread survived to grace all the princess line seams, pocket/neckline edges and of course the button holes.

I'd agree with the designer that the pattern is intermediate, only because there are a lot of pattern pieces to work with.  The instructions are nicely formatted, easy to understand and everything goes together logically. There are even diagrams for lengthening/shortening the bodice, preforming an FBA and a wide shoulder fitting adjustment included in the directions. The seam allowances are 3/8" on this pattern, which is nice for sewing all those princess line seams. It does mean you have less fabric to fiddle around with should something not fit. So make a muslin....seriously just do it.  (I know some of you are yelling "NEVER!" and laughing evilly right now.)  Another thing that should be mentioned is that I was on the lower end of the size range on this pattern. Right now I'm usually wearing a Big 4 size 14/16 and a independent pattern 10/12. On the Lea dress scale I was a 4/6 combo. The size range is 0-14 so the smaller ladies might find themselves out of the size range before the larger ladies do.

I loved sewing up this pattern, so much so that it got pounded out in a couple of days. Must...sew....dress... Why do you people keep asking me for food?!!! It's like they couldn't see that the dress and I were having an intimate moment. Our torrid love affair was over almost too quick, expect for the ripping out of top-stitching part. I'll be finding red fluff in Froggie's fur for days.

Pattern
Lea Dress from Jolie Marie Louise

Fabrics used
Dress weight black stretch denim - probably from EOS from some point
A bit of red polyester lining for the pockets

Pattern changes/alterations
You'll that the list of adjustments is rather long and I was surprised at the number after writing them down. Feel like I should note that fitting this dress was very easy due to the amount of seams. Just tweak a bit out here and put a bit more back there.
Fitting changes
1. Standard 1/2" forward shoulder adjustment.

2. 1/2" nipped out of the princess line seams at the back waist.

3. 1/2" was also removed from the top of the back princess line seam to decrease the size of the armhole.

4. Sway back adjustment of 1/2" to the back bodice.

5. 3/4" of ease added to the side seams at the hip area.  I went back and took some of this out because there the stretch denim gave me some extra wiggle room.

Style changes 
1. Neckline curve dropped 3/4". You know I like my lower necklines.

2. Increased the length of skirt 1 5/8".

3. Added a vent to the CB skirt slit because I prefer that finish.

Confessions/Advice
- The armhole is low enough to show the bra band on some of the styles I wear.  Will go back and raise it about 1/2" for any future versions.

- I still have a bit of gaping at the bust line. Might need to go back and do a very small FBA adjustment to the bodice.

- With the deep 2" hem, the finished back slit is too short for my taste. Since I added a vent intake I couldn't go back and make the slit higher.  For the future I will add another 1" to the top of my vent.

- The self piece of fabric for the pocket back is overlaid on the lining and top-stitched into place. I may go back and make that an actual seam. Was feeling too lazy to do so on this version.

Husband Comment
"Seven buttons, that's a lucky number."  You know it baby, cause I only had 7 of those vintage red buttons.

My Final Thoughts
More Patterns, MOAAAAAAAR! *Ahem* That is to say I will be interested to see future offerings from this designer. I like the chic style of this first pattern, as well as the more advanced sewing skill level needed. With all the beginner patterns being offered lately, it was a delight to have something interesting to sew that was also more of an "every day" sort of garment. There's only room in the closet for so many cocktail dresses sewn for kicks. At least I'll be prepared when Froggie lands that CEO job.
So in short I'd recommend this pattern and will be trying to get as much use out if it until the weather turns. Now I'm off to be effortless chic until I trip over a door frame while stuffing Froggie into my pocket. Look out below!