Know Me 2116

Today’s a slightly different kind of post from me! A designer dupe! I really fell in love hard with this Tove Studio dress. It’s got a few names depending on the the base fabric used – Sirena, Nina and Tabitha. It has the most beautiful gathers extending from the shoulders and a collar on that back neckline.

Know Me 2116 was a great starting point because it’s such close match with those overlays. And then I made a few adjustments to the dress view A. Basically I decided not to use the underlying bodice pieces and the straps and just steal the overlays and the skirt. For the bodice I used McCall’s 7608 – this stopped me from having to draft an armhole/shoulder onto the Know Me design.

My version is a recreation of the chartreuse organic cotton dress but I only had cotton linen to work with. Armed with a 1.9m  remnant of linen from Abakhan, I set to work on a toile of the pattern in polycotton and it really works in a lightweight cotton like this.

The two overlays are like, sort of large oval pieces that are sewn right sides together and turned through, and then you gather them at the centre line using basting stitches, and then put the little tie around the middle to create the illusion of a tie front. It kind of reduces the bulk, and I guess it makes neat knots.

I realised during construction that I’d have to gather the overlays at the side seams to help accentuate the folds of the fabric and get it to fit around my little bust a bit better. The skirt is basically a couple of gathered rectangles which kept things simple. I made bias binding for the armholes out of about ten scrap pieces, so there are so many joins.

I secretly stitched the folds in place with tiny little tack stitches, just to try and get them to fall in the perfect way every time I wore it, rather than any sagging happening. There is one gather I’m not 100% happy with it, so I’m probably going to unpick and redo so it folds a bit better. It’s such a strange request, I know; I want the overlays to like look crumpled, but in a neat way.

After finding the perfect shade of zipper in my stash, I then decided to hide it with a pricked stitch lap zipper finish. I really shouldn’t have bothered at all because I can slip the whole dress on over my head, but never mind.

Overall, I’m so pleased with this experiment. I don’t wear a lot of linen because it creases badly, so I’m still tempted to make the dress again in silk. I think the bust gathers would sit so beautifully in silk. And, it’s a silhouette that’s out of my comfort zone, so that makes me happy too. I’m trying new things!

The original dress is still way more beautiful than mine. I’m not that delusional, but this is a great DIY version for a much lower price. And I got to stretch my sewing skills.