Gingerrellina London Angel Dress

Earlier in the summer I signed up to test a new pattern from Gingerrellina London. She’s a small indie pattern company with a handful of designs. The Angel top and dress pattern has now been released so I can share my version and thoughts.

It’s a sleeveless top, mini, and midi dress pattern. I loved the narrow pintucks that run down alongside the button placket and clever construction for the tie / drawstring that uses buttonholes to weave the tie in and out of the waist. And you can get 20% off with code ANGEL20 before August 31st.

This is the midi length version of the dress with some length removed as I was just out of fabric. Finished, it’s 33″ long from underarm seam to hem. The pattern is meant to be fully lined but I wanted to keep my dress quite floaty and lightweight so I just made a short lining that is 6″ from the armhole seam to its overlocked hem edge. This floats free just above the buttonholes.

Speaking of buttonholes there are A LOT in the pattern. And for some unknown reason my machine hated making the buttonholes for this dress. I tried interfacing behind them on the inside of the garment and that didn’t help too. They were knotty and messy and I was very unhappy with them. In the end I unpicked all of them and tried again in a different thread which made a huge difference. Not sure why but I was thankful I did.

Unfortunately the top buttonhole failed on the second attempt and had to be unpicked again and stitched a third time. That meant I stretched the top of the garment slightly out of shape. It’s not noticeable to most people but I find it a little annoying when I look down at it.

The shoulder straps are relatively thin so you don’t turn the project through to the right side in the standard way through the straps. Instead you partially construct – sewing up one side and then slip stitching the other side closed. I’ve used this method before on vintage patterns and grumble at having to sit and hand sew but the result is neat.

My biggest challenge that was fed back, is there are a lot of small seam allowances – 1cm and 6mm plus edge stitching of 2-3mm. My machine doesn’t have a 6mm guide so for those parts I had to find a piece of masking tape and make a line to follow. 6mm is irritatingly small for a fraying fabric like my linen too. Many of the 1cm seams are stitched and then trimmed in half so I asked why couldn’t the 6mm seams be this standard size and trimmed back too?

Fit wise I made a size 8 (US) / 12 (UK) / 40 (EU). I had to take a fair bit out of the shoulder strap height front and back but I am a shorty at 5 ft 4. I also raised the front neckline by 1cm to offer better coverage at the chest. The waist cinches nicely with the ease that’s in the pattern and I liked how long the tie was – many drawstring patterns I make don’t include a long enough tie piece for my liking. The other thing that annoyed me (that seems to be an issue with all the indie patterns I make lately) was no size labels on the cutting lines; There’s only a key and if you have a memory like a fish, like me, then you have to check the key every 30 seconds to check you’re following the right line.

I used a linen from my stash that I picked up at the huge Minerva warehouse event last Spring (fabric now sold out). I had two 1.5m pieces and it’s a one way print design so had to make sure to cut everything out with a one way / nap cutting layout. My Mum bought the same fabric and made a totally different dress so we will end up twinning at some point. I thought it was a Minerva exclusive design but then I saw it in a fabric shop in Walthamstow a year later, see if you can spot it in this London Fabric Shopping video! Either way I love the rich blue base with those rose-y pops of colour.

PS. Minerva’s next in-person warehouse/shopping event in Darwen, Lancashire is scheduled for Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th October 2026

If you want to see what the sale looks like before you decide to attend watch this video where I give a tour of the building and what you can shop!