With a selection of laces available in stores and online, we thought we'd try out the beautiful Tide Dress from Papercut Patterns this week on the blog! We wanted a simple style that would show off our incredible black floral lace and knew the Tide would be perfect. The pattern comes in two variations - a calf length dress or a top with a cropped front and a dipped back hem. This week we’ll show you the dress version, stay tuned for the top version of the pattern next week!
Pattern Review
Tide Dress by Papercut Patterns
The Tide is available as a PDF download from Papercut Patterns and paper copies are available in all of our stores and in our online collection. We made ours up in a size XXS for Annelise from our HQ team and found that this was a pretty good fit! Annelise's measurements actually matched the size XS, but from our experience Papercut Patterns generally have quite a casual looser fit, so we referred to the finished bust measurement and sized down to be safe.
The Tide is a straight sheath style dress with short set-in sleeves, pleat back detailing, side seam slits and a scoop front neckline. We used the recommended 2.5m of our lace (135cm width) and as always with Papercut Patterns, we found the instructions very easy to follow! Papercut suggest this pattern would suit a 'skilled' sewer, which we would agree with. We chose to sew french seams for a clean, professional finish and we used the selvedge edge for our sleeve hems plus a little black satin bias binding for the neckline. If you fancy trying your hand at French seams too, there are a bunch of handy instructional videos on Youtube, like this one here from Made To Sew.
We also decided to do a permanent 'false button' to fix the back neck together as we found the dress would still slip over the head easily enough without having a working button.
Fabric Recommendations
Papercut suggest the Tide Dress suits a variety of lightweight woven fabrics with drape, such as silk, cotton or rayon. We chose to make ours up in our rayon nylon blend Edged Floral Lace, which has a beautifully soft handle and drape. Because it's a little sheer, we styled it with a plain slip underneath. If you need to whip up a slip, Papercut's Maya Cami/Dress pattern would work perfectly! We love that our lace also features some cute selvedge edge detailing, which made for a very chic pair of sleeves. Alternatively to lace, we think the Tide would be lovely in a silk crepe de chine, printed georgette or rayon crepe. You could also make it up in a lightweight cotton or linen for a more casual feel!
Check out our suggestions featured below, from top to bottom:
Liberty Bloomsbury Crinkle Chiffon - Saxby / A, Liberty Lisson Georgette - Combe /B, Rayon Crepe - Blush, Abstract Animal Print Silk Devoré, Liberty Bloomsbury Crinkle Chiffon - Midnight / A and Star Print Poly Crepe de Chine - Navy
A lace dress makes the perfect statement piece for special celebrations and we think the Tide is the perfect pattern for this type of fabric. Don’t forget to share your makes with us on Instagram by tagging @wearethefabricstore or using #thefabricstore
Thank you to Annelise from our Online Store team for modelling!