By Hand London Anna Dress but make it mermaid and also looking back on what we’ve learned

This pattern is the Anna Dress by By Hand London. For years I saw reviews and pics of this pattern and really wanted to make it. I love a good boatneck top. And it seemed to look good on everyone. I finally got it and used this beautiful metallic quilting cotton that looks like mermaid scales to do it.

Now I made this years ago (yeah, yeah, I know I’m just getting around to blogging about it now, but you all should be used to this. At least I’m starting to get better about getting photos), so this was before I had any moulage or flat pattern experience or really knew how clothes should/could fit one’s self.

But, what’s nice is that I can look back and see all the things I’ve learned since this dress!

Looking at the back, we can see that there’s some definite pooling in the back. I’ve since learned that I almost always need to shorten the waist by 3/4”-1”. I didn’t know that when I did this dress. On the one hand, it’s frustrating to look at it, but on the other hand it shows just how much I’ve grown technically. Now, hypothetically I could go in and take out the waist seam, take out the zipper, remove the inch and then put it back together. But realistically that’s not going to happen unless I’m super bored one day (and looking at my todo list that day is not coming any time soon . . .). 

And looking at the side, it looks like we might also want a swayback adjustment. Maybe take 1/2” off at the front and a full inch at the back.

I don’t really have any good shots of it, but there’s also a little gaping in the neckline which could easily be fixed by removing the underlining stitches, then removing the facing and then taking the shoulder seams in about 1/4” at a the neck graduated to nothing at the shoulders and then putting it all back together. But much like the waist, probably not going to fix it any time soon because even with theses issues, I still wear the dress frequently (well, as frequently as I wear dresses). It’s light and comfortable.

There were several things that I did well. For example, here’s how I did the hem on the sleeves. It’s one of my favorite “cheater” hems. I serge the edge and then use that as my guide for folding over twice. Stitch down again and you’re done. It ends up being about 1/4” hem (1/2” from the bottom total).

And this was one of the first pieces where I realized pinking curved edges like this made them fold over so much nicer and was so much easier than clipping notches.

So lots learned.

After making this I originally thought that I liked the dress but probably wouldn’t make it again. However, now that I’ve had a chance to analyze my mistakes and realize that they would actually be quite easy to fix, I would make it again. It’s a fairly easy dress to put together.

Oh, and I’d also add pockets. Because without somewhere to put my phone, I’m never gonna wear it to work.