The Papercut Patterns Ravine Dress v1

I wanted to make a linen dress that I could easily dress up or down. After much searching online I stumbled across the Papercut Patterns Ravine dress. It has such interesting design lines and is bias cut so I knew it would hit the mark.

The linen is from Merchant and Mills and is such a beautiful colour which fits perfectly in my soft colour palette. It’s called french clay. An amazing neutral which matches very well to the shell colour of my swatch card.

I found the pattern a little tricky to cut out as it needed to be cut on single layer fabric due to the bias cut, and even though I have a huge cutting table, it didn’t fit on, so I had to be so careful about it “stretching out”.

Construction wise, its actually quite simple, but you just have to trust the instructions as its difficult to see how it all fits together. The notches are absolutely essential otherwise you could easily piece it together incorrectly.

The instructions are pretty basic and lack some essential details. For example it doesn’t tell you to stay stitch the neckline and armholes, but as its bias cut I thought it would be a dangerous little game to dismiss this step so I added it in.

I love the backless element of this pattern, it makes it a little more interesting and its perfect to show off my back tattoo. Look how gorgeous those diagonal seam lines are.

You can add a back strap if you wish, or if you find it slips off. But for me it doesn’t at all slip so I didn’t need to include this. Ive also seen some makers have added a strap where a bra strap would sit so that you can wear a bra. I guess you could make a removable strap (adding press studs) if you wanted a flexible option.

I used french seams throughout, mainly due to my overlocker being in for service, but I’m glad that I did as the diagonal seam lines look amazing on the inside.

Now this wasn’t a perfect make, a couple of things did go wrong. Firstly, I found that the back pieces (where they meet the diagonal seam lines) must have stretched out a little, meaning that the pieces didn’t meet in the middle as they should. However I easily rectified this by zig zagging the raw edge, then sewing the belt on top to cover it up.

I also wasn’t overly happy with the finish of the arm holes. The pattern instructs you to add the armhole binding before sewing the side seam, so I ended up with lots of bulk on the inner armhole seam, so much so that my machine struggled to stitch through it. I plan on making a v2 and I will definitely sew the side seam first, then add the binding enclosing the joining seam of the binding and reducing the bulk. Look out for v2 some time soon!

I really love the Papercut Patterns Ravine Dress pattern and can’t wait to wear it once the weather warms up a little. V2 will be made very soon.