Earn one's stripes: Colette 'Parfait'

There's only one thing that I don't like about Colette Patterns, and that is that there's not enough of them! Ba-doom Ching!

My latest creation is from the Colette Patterns range; the Parfait dress and it's delicious.

It features a gathered bust, a flattering high smooth high waist, loose A-line flared skirt, pockets and buttons!

And who doesn't like pockets! Let's be honest! Well actually, I've been known to ignore the pockets on some patterns due to their positioning. Some side seam pockets can add unnecessary bulk to already bulky areas (pear shape much?) but these fancy pants pockets sit mercifully on the front of the thighs minding their own business.

I made the dress out a heavy cotton that I purchased from The Fabric Store and the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to get fancy with the stripes. I played around with the different directions of the strips to add extra flare to the look. Some pieces the stripes are horizontal, some vertical, some diagonal.

See all the different directions? It'll make you go cross eyed, but I find the effect very satisfying.

I love the gathered bust shape and the sweet heart neck line.

Now I can sense that some of you are jumping up and down on your seats and pointing at your screen so I will come out and say what you've already probably noticed. Yes. The tabs on the shoulder straps are back to front. The tab is supposed to have the button and go behind the strap with the button hole. I accidentally did it the wrong way round so you don't see the pointed detail of the strap.

See? The arrow strap is supposed to go on top. Oh well, I still think it looks good so I'm just going to let that one go.

I love the high waist which is very flattering to a pear/hour glass shape with the nice flared skirt. It hides lumps and bumps well!

Also, because this dress isn't lined, it's quite fast to whip up, and a good dress for beginners. P.s.- how cool are the buttons in contrast to the stripes!

Changes I made:

I cut the bodice and waist in a six, and cut the skirt from the hips down in a size eight. This is actually pretty awesome for me, as normal commercial patterns the hip size usually needs to be cut more than one size bigger than the waist and torso.

I made this dress up in a calico first (good girl Julia!) which highlighted some adjustments that I needed to make on the bust.

The centre of bodice, right where is drips down into a V was very gapey on me, so I sliced one cm from the centre fold to remove the excess fabric. You can see on the picture below the slice that I've cut off on the left of the pattern piece.
Even though I have a full bust, there was a lot of loose fabric flapping around in the centre of each cup, which wasn't eliminated from the gather stitch below the bust, so I created a dart of about 1.5 cm's on the pattern piece to reduce the volume, which you can see in the photo below.
Lastly, the bottom of the bust pieces sat way down lower than where my bust started (my bust starts pretty high on my frame) so I reduced the curve under the bust by about two centremetres. You can see where I've cut it out in the below photo.

The result was a nice fitted bodice. Everything else stayed the same - minus my button hole/strap blooper.

It was a pleasure as always making a Colette pattern. The packaging is detailed and injected with love and the instructions were intuitive, instructive and caring. Another great dress from the Colette patterns range! And I do love a good stripe print.

Update: I was looking at the Colette Flickr group and found another version of this pattern by the very talented Paunnet from earlier this year! My dress is almost exactly the same, looks like I've channelled her awesome-ness in my version! You can check out her Parfait on her blog