Just Desserts Dress: Lisette Portfolio - Simplicity 2245

Trifling with the idea of making another Portfolio dress, I spied Fabric Land's pudding patterned Cake Stand heavy cotton (from their own-brand Hill-Berg range) at £3.99 a metre – it would've been churlish not to buy some to make this dress with.

Novelty print linen-look heavy cottons are a Fabric Land favourite of mine, and while they may be intended for craft use, I find them most suitable for dressmaking. The dress I made from their Berlin Macaroon fabric washes and wears well and still looks as good as the day I made it, as do the two Ticket To Ride dresses. They're a perfect weight to wear layered during the winter and the fabrics feel cool enough for summer too.

The Hill-Berg Cake Stand fabric features images from Mrs Beeton's 1861 Book of Household Management including illustrations of meringues, chocolate cream, blancmange, jelly, trifle, stewed pears and tipsy cake. The fabric is available in three colourways but I liked the blue best.

Illustrated puddings from Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861

Fabric Land's Hill-Berg design Cake Stand printed cotton

Sewing a second Portfolio Dress I decided to try the short turn-up sleeve version this time. The instructions state that you should apply fusible interfacing to the sleeve bands, however, in the orange needle corduroy I used this has made them feel a bit too chunky to turn back, so I'm leaving them down. Next time I will skip the interfacing step. The corduroy is another remnant from my stash.

I think the finished dress is splendid, and the fact that it cost me less than £10 in materials to make is the cherry on the cake! 

Lisette Portfolio Dress: Simplicity 2245 - in floral corduroy

I've written before about my yearning for a copy of Simplicity's out-of-print Lisette Portfolio dress sewing pattern and tweeted about this again recently having seem a shockingly priced one on eBay. Kerry of Sew Ichigo and Very Kerry Berry got in touch and kindly offered to send me her own used copy of the Portfolio pattern. I am most thankful and touched by her generosity. What better way to start my sewing year?

The Lisette Portfolio is the original version of Liesl + Co's Cappuccino – a dress I've now sewn four times (three of them blogged), so was convinced the design would work for me. There are a few minor differences between the two sewing patterns, the main one being that the Portfolio has a more demure high scoop neckline.

I'd heard that sewing the centre front square panel could be tricky, but I actually found it easier to make than the Cappuccino's V-neck. As before, I cut the dress as a size 10 for the top half, graduating out to a 14 at the hips. It has a centre back seam, so I shaped this a little more so that it wasn't baggy at the waist. I cut the back facing in one piece (instead of adding a back closure) as the dress fits easily over my head. It's a roomy A-line design and is exactly the style I feel most comfortable wearing.

The fabric I used is deliciously soft floral pin cord made by Japanese company Sevenberry (Christmas money well spent at Eternal Maker). The main body of the dress is in Flower Garden print and the yoke and cuffs are in Daisy Floral. The two fabrics clash perfectly to my taste! I love the finished dress – the corduroy is great for these colder days. There will definitely be more Portfolios this year.