Joni Dress by Tilly and the Buttons

I made this Joni Dress to wear to the New Craft House Galentines party. I have been wanting to attend a New Craft House party for a long time but either just missed out on a ticket or had a clash. Finally, I managed to attend a party! The theme for the Galentines party was red and pink, which seems simple enough, but it took me a long time to decide what to make. I originally had the idea of making another Screwdriver top, with one front side and sleeve in a pink cotton and the other in red. As it turns out, it’s really not that easy to find the same type of cotton in the right red and pink so after visiting every fabric store in Soho and scouring all of my usual online shops, I gave up and changed my plan.

The idea for this dress came from the fabric rather than the pattern. I was scrolling through all of the beautiful fabrics on Sew Me Sunshine and came across this lovely Lottie Tencel Modal Jersey. It ticked the red and pink box (with a dash of blue) and I already owned Tilly and the Buttons’ Stretch book with the Joni pattern so I decided to give it a go. After ordering the fabric, I had my usual reservations and started to wonder whether the fabric was too light and floaty for this pattern but it turned out to be perfect. It’s lovely and soft - a great quality jersey.

The bumpy elastic that I attached to the waistline and later removed

The top was fairly easy to make and the instructions were simple to follow. Early last year, I made a Freya dress, which is really tight, so I decided to go up a size and made a size 3. There was one thing I had overlooked in the supplies list - clear elastic. Because I was making this dress on a deadline for an event, by the time I realised, I didn’t think I had enough time to run out to the shops so instead improvised with some standard thin elastic. This didn’t really work on the finished dress - it made the waistline bumpy - so I decided to cut it out of the seam allowance. Technically the elastic should be there to stop the waistline from stretching but it has been fine so far. I did use this same elastic on the shoulders without any issues (and have since purchased stay tape for new stretch projects).

The completed twist and attaching the neckline facing

The twist front on the dress looks intimidating but it really is quite simple. All it required was literally a twist before attaching the bodice to the skirt of the dress. Everything else was hassle-free for me. I don’t own an overlocker so the entire dress was made using zigzag stitch on my sewing machine. The best thing about this dress is that it looks so great while being so comfortable that I could almost sleep in it!

Me at the New Craft House Galentines Party