Raspberry Tiramisu

I’ve finally done it. I’ve gone and jumped on the Tiramisu bandwagon.

In case you haven’t encountered it before, the Tiramisu was the first pattern released by Australian-based Cake Patterns. It’s a knit dress, with a surplice bodice, short cut-on sleeves, and a flowing skirt. And it’s been getting rave reviews all around the blogosphere.

Normally, I’m not one for knit dresses, but what the heck – may as well give it a go and see what everyone’s talking about!

One thing that really impressed me about this pattern was the stripe placement guide. Steph (the designer) has put a lot of thought into the effects you can create with this pattern using stripes, and how to give guidelines to people so the stripes match up perfectly at every seam. All of the pattern pieces have stripe guidelines – if you use them correctly, you get chevron effects on the back bodice, and front and back skirt centre seams. You also have nice diagonal stripes across the bust, which perfectly meet the back bodice stripes at the shoulders. And the skirt front and back stripes match down the skirt side seams. And the midriff front and back also match at the side seams. (Unless you’re me and make a mistake cutting out which you don’t realise until it’s far too late. So, you know, don’t look too closely at those midriff side seams, ok?)

Admittedly, it took me aaaaages to cut this out, as my pink-and-navy stripe fabric not only has reasonably narrow stripes, it’s also a soft stretchy knit, so I had to painstakingly cut out every single piece individually, being supercareful not to stretch the fabric out of shape.

It was worth it, though. Check out those chevrons, yeah!

The sizing for this confused me a bit. I’m right between sizes, so could either make up the 30D or the 35A. Since there is no way (ever!) that I’m a D cup, I went with the 35A. And then had to take it in at the side seams to about where the 30 would have been. As a result, it’s not sitting quite right at the neckline, but hey, it’ll do. And I like the result of this pattern enough that I’m gonna try making it up again, with a 30 instead of a 35 bodice. (Still not sure what cup size to go with though… D just sounds wrong for my shape. Maybe I’ll go for a B and see how that works out….)

I also decided not to put the pockets in, as if I then went to put anything in the pockets while wearing the dress, you’d be able to see the shape of whatever was in them. So yeah, nah, not this time anyway.

I was worried about the cling factor of the skirt – since it’s a knit fabric dress and I. I needn’t have worried – the fullness of the skirt means it hangs nicely, no VPL or anything. Win!

Sadly the fit isn’t quite right on me, but I’ll try the size down next time and see how that goes. 🙂 And I can attest that this is a super-comfy dress, and there will be a next time with making it up!