Townmouse 'Adelaide Sundress' in Umbrella Prints, and discounts for you!

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Townmouse is a beautiful new line of pdf children's clothing patterns by Melbourne designer Kristine Lempriere. We had the chance to test the newest Townmouse pattern, the Adelaide Sundress. And on a sunny pre-spring day in Adelaide, it seemed pretty much perfect!

Kristine studied fashion design and patternmaking before creating a children's clothing label, Townmouse Children's Wear, which she ran for ten years before taking time out for family. Now she's releasing many of her best-selling designs as patterns for home sewists. She has a lovely blog here, and her pattern shop is on Etsy here.

We love the classic style of Townmouse patterns. We feel like they're a great match for many fabrics at The Drapery. We sewed it up in Umbrella Prints organic cotton 'Brushstrokes on Olive Gold'.
 Australian pattern designer, Australian fabric shop, Australian fabric designers: the trifecta, woot!
 (With Moda crossweave in Pepper as contrast.)

Our little friend, four-year-old Winter kindly agreed to model the dress for us, in exchange for keeping it, of course. (Many thanks to her parents Hannah and Nic for being part of this and also to Hannah for location scouting for the photos! Methinks I'll need to up my game from front-of-the-chookyard in future.)

The Adelaide pattern is very well-written with excellent diagrams and some good techniques for achieving a lovely clean finish. The puffed pockets, gathers at the neckline and bow detail give the dress just enough sweetness. We loved the opportunity to use a contrast fabric at the yoke and pocket binding.



The dress was well-tested for run-and-play-ability and apart from being a trifle on the long side, proved a winner. If I was to make this again to specifically fit Winter I'd probably go down a size (this was the size 4), so you may wish to bear that in mind if your girl has a slight build. However the loose fit will make it very breezy for summer and easy to layer in cooler weather.

Please note: this was the test version of the pattern and the armholes have been raised in the final, perfected pattern!
The pattern goes up to a size 10, which makes us particularly happy as we know that tween-age girls are a bit of a gap in the pattern market. Adelaide could be tweaked to look quite sophisticated on an older girl, with clever fabric selection, and perhaps swapping in-seam side pockets for the patch pockets and even substituting a button tab at the shoulder, or shorter draped ties, instead of the bow.

AND NOW FOR YOUR DISCOUNTS!

To celebrate the launch of the Adelaide Sundress, Townmouse Patterns is offering 10% off all pdf patterns during September with the discount code ADELAIDE.

The Drapery is also offering 15% off full-priced fabrics purchased in-store to use for any Townmouse pattern, during the whole of Spring. (Yes, even Liberty!) Just bring your pattern into the shop as proof of purchase. We can help you pick out the perfect fabrics and notions!

- Jane & Fiona xx

Comments

  1. MiriamSeptember 3, 2015 at 6:26 AM

    What a lovely little model! Great dress

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JaneSeptember 3, 2015 at 4:14 PM

      Thanks Miriam, yes Winter did such a great job! And if I had girls of my own I think I'd be churning out dozens of these little dresses.

      Delete

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