The 'Cassiopée Mini' Dress by I Am Patterns – A pattern review in collaboration with Makerist.com

For this blog post I’ve teamed up with Makerist.com who kindly invited me to review two of their patterns and offer my lovely followers the chance to win one of three free patterns in a GIVEAWAY over on my Instagram account @secret_life_of_a_seamstress. Makerist are also kindly offering my readers 20% off of all full price patterns too so if you’d like to treat yourself to a lovely sewing pattern as well as enter the giveaway simply enter the code SECRETLIFE20 at checkout.

*Please be aware that the giveaway ends on Monday 21 September and discount code ends on Monday 19 October, so if you’re reading this post after these dates I’m afraid you’re too late this time*

Makerist are an online craft hub offering thousands of PDF patterns by indie designers and a tonne of inspiration for whatever your latest project might be. Do pop over and check them out here.

My inspiration...

I am always on the lookout for new sewing patterns for my children and when the super cute ‘Cassiopée Mini ‘ dress pattern caught my eye I knew at once that my daughter would love it. I’d heard of the Cassiopée dress in adult size but I wasn’t aware, until I found this one on the Makerist site, that they had a ‘mini’ version too. I’ve linked the pattern here so that you can have a look at it for yourself.

Below is a picture of the pattern company image and the line drawings so that you can get a feel for the style of the dress – isn’t it cute!

I really loved the relaxed style of this dress, the raglan sleeves and the cute baby doll style of the bodice and gathered skirt.

My daughter loves double gauze fabric for her clothes and I loved the look of the cream dress shown above so I decided to use this pretty white double gauze fabric from Higgs and Higgs. White might not be the best choice for children’s clothes but you can’t deny how cute it looks on 😉

The preparation…

I downloaded and printed out the PDF pattern which was super clear and easy to follow and didn’t take me long at all to put together. My daughter is 8 and based on the size guide I went for a straight size 8 for my dress too. My only concern, based on the finished garment measurements, was that it might be a little too roomy but I’d rather have more room to play around with than less so I went for that size anyway.

I cut out my fabric pieces using my trusty rotary cutter, cutting mat and pattern weights and it seemed to take no time at all – this fabric was beautiful to cut and behaved itself very well.

The sewing…

This dress is such an enjoyable sew. The raglan sleeves are joined to the bodice pieces on the flat as you can see below and the back bodice and neckline are finished with a facing which went together beautifully. I didn’t use any interfacing on my facing this time because the fabric was pretty stable on it’s own, the edges are overlocked all around to stop any fraying.

The sleeves are also sewn flat to the shoulders and neckline and then the side seams are sewn up the sleeve and down the bodice in one piece. Size wise, I found that the bodice did indeed come up a little large based on my daughter’s measurements. The dress is supposed to be oversized but there was a little too much room around the under arm and waist area so to fix this I graded from a 1cm seam allowance up the sleeve, to a 2cm seam allowance under the arm and down the bodice. This just took it in that little bit so that it wasn’t too oversized for her.

From there the back opening is overlapped slightly and the button holes are then sewn to the left of the facing. I really like that the bodice buttons up at the back – if you’re using a plain fabric like mine you can have some fun with the buttons that you choose to give a really cute finishing touch. I went for these little wooden buttons which compliment the gold flecks in the fabric I think.

The skirt is then sewn together at the side seams, gathered at the top and attached to the bodice. This all came together very nicely too, I really do love working with double gauze fabric it handles so well.

So then there were simply the hems left to do. The pattern calls for you to turn up the long sleeve to give a cuff effect but I simply hemmed my sleeves under by 1.5cm because I preferred this look. I also turned up the skirt a little less than the pattern suggested to give my daughter a little more length as I did find it came up quite short on her. Personally I don’t mind this as I think it looks really cute but something to bear in mind if you have a taller child maybe.

My final thoughts on the pattern…

This is the best pattern I have tried for my daughter. It came together so quickly and easily – I think I sewed up the whole thing in approximately 2.5 hours and that’s including printing and putting the PDF together and cutting out. It’s the perfect relaxed comfy style for a child and can be worn in summer or winter. I’d love to try the short sleeve version next as I think it would look really cute with a long sleeve top underneath for the winter months.

I highly recommend this pattern! If you are a beginner or are new to sewing, the most difficult step is probably the buttonholes but in my opinion the best thing is that there are no sleeves to set in in the round 🙂

Thank you so much Makerist for inviting me to try this pattern I’m hooked and I’m sure there will be many more versions to come. We had fun taking some cute photos of the dress in the sunflower and lavender fields – doesn’t she look cute!!

Don’t forget to pop over and enter my Instagram GIVEAWAY where you could win yourself a copy of this pattern too and please do pop over and read my review of the beautifully boho Lulu dress which you can find here and see a sneak peak of in one of the images below… 🙂