Anna Dress (Version 2!)

The fabric is a digitally printed polyester crepe from Sew Over It in Clapham, who a lovely variety of prints in different weights. I've actually been holding onto it for a few months as I picked it up on a whim at the start of summer when I was thinking about making playsuits, it was one of those prints that instantly caught my eye and I couldn't resist! It's very lightweight and drapey but not particularly sheer, even in direct sunlight. I was really pleased to discover that even though it's polyester I stayed quite cool in it, even running around on hot days. I think the fit of the dress and those kimono sleeves help.

I did have some difficulty with the fabric shifting around while cutting, it was hard to make sure it was completely on grain even with lots of pins. I got there in the end but I think next time I'm working with a fabric this fine I'll give the 'cutting between sheets of paper/tissue paper' trick a go. I've seen it talked about quite a lot recently (Jen from Grainline wrote a good post on it) and think with a slippery silk it would be particularly useful. The fabric shifting about also caused a few problems while sewing and I ended up with a few puckered skirt seems. I redid some parts and pressed it as much as I could but there's still a couple of points that are bugging me a bit. Writing that has just reminded me that the polyester content gave me a few issues when pressing as it couldn't take anything more than the lowest heat setting (learnt that the hard way!) but it really needed a bit more to get some of the seams to lie flat.


After having some issues with the neckline gaping on my first Anna I decided to cut out some of that excess this time rather than adding in darts. I'd unfortunately already cut this version before I noticed the issue with my first so I couldn't do a proper alteration to the pattern. I'd seen a couple of other bloggers had taken some out of the centre back to reduce the neckline width so I decided I could still do this. I measured 1" in from the centre back at the neckline on each piece and drew a line down to nothing at about 5" down. It's probably not the best way to go about it as it messes with the grain along the centre back but I'm pretty happy with the result. If you want to do a proper alteration Sonja from Ginger Makes wrote a great post on how simple it is. Along with simply clipping and under-stitching the neckline this seems to have solved not only the gaping issue but the problem I had getting the slash neck to lie flat.

Neckline construction

Matching of skirt seams and bodice pleats

I'm really really pleased with seam and dart matching all over, it's much better than my first Anna. I'm also really happy with the invisible-ness of my invisible zip and I even included an enclosed hook and eye at the top of the zip using Karen from Did You Make That's tutorial. I love this technique!

Concealed hook and eye and pinked facings

On my first Anna I used bias binding to finish my facing's but felt it was a little bulky with the drape of the fabric and style of the pattern. This fabric has a similar drape but hardly frays at all so I simply pinked the edges of the facing this time, along with the centre back zip seam.