A few weeks ago, I finally came around on the True Bias Roscoe dress, which I hadn\’t much liked when it first made its debut. I promptly bought the pattern, made a dress (which I have been wearing constantly! and which you won\’t see here for another few months), and then like a week later, casually checked instagram to see that the Wilder gown from Friday Patterns had dropped. I was immediately smitten with the tiered gathers and loved the neckline tie. Since I had Roscoe on my mind, though, I could also see all the similarities: same gathered neckline, loose, swingy bodice, front slit… so instead of purchasing the Wilder I decided I\’d try and hack it from the Roscoe.
As far as changes go, the neckline is the most distinctive feature of the Wilder and just involved adding about 3\” to the neckline of the Roscoe front, back, and sleeve pieces, in a rectangle, straight up from the seam allowance. This is a pretty hack-y alteration, and not how it \”should be done\” but it works fine because the pieces are pretty flat up top and it all gets gathered into the neckline anyway. Then you just folded it under a scant .5\” and 1.5\” again, and topstiched it down at .75\” and 1.5\” from the top for the ruffle and the casing. The Roscoe\’s gathers are a bit fuller than the Wilder\’s so it\’s a LOT of ruffle–I\’m in love. The neckline tie is .75\” wide and as long as the fabric is wide (like, 55\”ish completed). As far as the front opening goes, I swapped out the neckline V for a placket in my first Roscoe, and for this one I skipped the V again in favor of cutting the front in two pieces and leaving a little gap up top. I didn\’t muslin the whole dress after making these mods but I did cut out just the top chunk of each pattern piece to double check and make sure my changes sort of worked, at least.
I used the longer Roscoe body, and then used rectangles that I just eyeballed for the two tiers. I thought about just making a waist tie but with the tie neck, I decided to make an elastic casing waistband instead. The casing is on the interior of the dress. The biggest remaining difference between my Wilder/Roscoe and the true Wilder are the sleeves–I really loved the sleeves on my blush Roscoe and didn\’t want to mess with them, so I kept the volume and elasticated cuff. I thought about adding a cuff ruffle to match that but decided against it since this dress is pretty fussy already.
Scoping out all the inspo on the #wildergown hashtag I was super into the solid ones–especially this one in black and this one in white, and once I decided on black, linen was calling my name. Perfectly glam and spooky for NC\’s hot summer and fall. The linen is the midweight softened linen from fabrics-store.com. This store doesn\’t seem all that popular with apparel sewing bloggers but they have everrrrything when it comes to linen. I should have gone with the lightweight linen–or maybe I\’ll just have to wash and wear this dress a lot! Paired with my black sandals and straw hat, I\’m feeling very glam–and very well protected from the sun.
xoxo,
I love it! I have just recently been coming around on the Roscoe dress as well, and while I'm drawn to prints in the fabric store, I've been feeling a lack of solids in my wardrobe recently. It turned out fabulously.
Ooh I've never heard of that store! It's got some beautiful stuff…I like the 'made with this fabric' gallery, some excellent witchy inspiration there on the black linen listing. Make one of these in white and you can be a ghost, too. 🙂 Nice use of your pattern!