Pattern Review: Tea and Treadle Little Betty
I've reviewed a cut/sew.co lolita pattern, and some First Stop Cosplay lolita patterns, and today I'm reviewing this lolita JSK pattern from Tea and Treadle.
[link to purchase size xs-l] [link to purchase size l-3xl]
Unlike those patterns, this one actually required relatively little effort to make it work as a pretty solid lolita dress. On First Stop Cosplay's patterns, I had to re-pattern a couple of individual pieces. The HeyCutsew pattern was so far beyond help that it wasn't worth trying. On this one, I added additional fullness to the skirt, and that was all the modification I did to the pattern.
This pattern is for a JSK that has a built in ruffled underskirt. (People who've made an Ultrabustle can use that instead of building a new underskirt, if you want).
The bodice is fully lined, and has princess seams and a 1/4 back shirring panel. The instructions tell you how to add ribbon loops to the shirring panel for your back lacing ribbon; I didn't have ribbon at work so there's no lacing in my loops yet. The straps also don't meet in the back the way they appear to in this picture; they're pinned together in this picture to fit on my hanging mannequin. They're actually standard over the shoulder straps. I made this dress at work, so it's store property for the next three months, which is why I don't have a lot of pictures to work with.
I found that the princess seams in the size M didn't have a lot of shape to them, and so the bodice is a little bit tube shaped. My flat menswear mannequin definitely is not helping the look. However you can see in my one tried-on picture that it's not really forming around my bust. A certain amount of this will be able to be adjusted via the back corset lacing.
The skirt was also really not full enough for a lolita skirt. The pattern has the skirt at 2x what the waist of the dress is. I added fullness so that it was more like 3x for the top skirt and 2.5x for the underskirt. This was actually the only adjustment I had to make.
This pattern has no notches or grain lines, and that really does not do it any favors. I might have sewn my side seams together incorrectly (I don't have the dress available to check) because the side back piece fits on either orientation. Having a notch on the side seam would have made sure that I didn't have it flipped backwards. Notches aren't a thing that is optional in a sewing pattern; they're an important sign post that tells you which way to go. Notches are necessary for a good project in the same way that stop signs are necessary at an intersection. Yeah, you could probably figure out how to not hit other cars, but why would you go with "probably" when you can have a definite instruction to prevent accidents.
The pattern has both skirts cut on the lengthwise grain, which is a problem if you're using a print that's oriented in the normal direction, but would be very useful if using a quilt print with a large stripe. The skirt pattern is just rectangles, and you're given specific dimensions, so it's not too hard to adjust them for cutting on the crosswise grain. If you can figure out how to assemble a princess seamed bodice without notches or grainlines, you're probably also experienced enough to rotate a rectangular pattern.
Seam allowances are 5/8", and I do wish they'd given a little bit extra on the tops of the ruffles. This would have made the gathering stitches easier to hide. I used a serger+differential feed+serger ruffling foot for most of my ruffles, because I was at work and wanted to show off those machines. This meant that I didn't have as much of a problem with hiding the gathering edges, but keeping your two basting stitches contained within half an inch is kind of annoying.
There are diagrams that explain some parts. There's 20 total in the whole 11-page document, not counting cutting diagrams. Like almost all indie patterns, including my own, the instructions suffer from not being able to be consistent about the expectation of the user's sewing skills. Some more difficult skills are glossed over, and then some easier skills get several steps going over each component of the technique. I really wish it included a diagram of the ruffled underskirt. The pieces making up the ruffle underskirt are called "base A," "base B," "ruffle 1," and "ruffle 2". At one part ruffle 1 is sandwiched between the bottom edge of base A and the top edge of base B. I spent a lot of time staring at that section going "what does this mean what does this mean what does this mean??" At the end of the day, I did figure it out, but not understanding that step made me lose like a whole day of productivity.
BTW it's assembled like this, and I have no idea if my diagram here is more or less useful than the instructions that come with the pattern.
I'd say this pattern runs large. I ended up making the size M for myself, and I'm normally a L+ in other brands. This pattern goes up to 3x, but their XS size isn't all that small. I was going to make twin dresses for myself and a friend of mine using another Tea and Treadle pattern, but their sizes aren't inclusive of her size, and so that's a pattern we're not able to make. Full disclosure, at one point I forgot that the seam allowance was 5/8, and sewed at a 1/2 inch seam allowance. This did not help my fitting problems and it was entirely my fault. Read your instructions, kiddos.
So let's get to the summary:
Do I recommend this pattern? I had fun making it and I like the garment I ended up with. The lack of notches and grain lines makes this a very beginner-unfriendly pattern. You need to have enough sewing experience to know what a princess seamed pattern should look like, and how it should be placed relative to the fabric grain. I think this is probably a pretty good pattern for someone who is a lolita beginner who has intermediate level sewing skills. The design itself is solid, the alterations needed are relatively minor. Generally when we're giving someone a pattern and telling them to make a lolita dress with it, "and then just add some lace," is often uttered. This can be a task that's tough for someone sewing lolita fashion for the first-ish time, and so I like that this pattern shows where to put the lace and where to put the ruffles.
Unlike the First Stop Cosplay patterns (25 per pattern and came in 1 size), I paid $11 for this pattern and it came with four sizes. I originally made the wrong size (my fault; I matched the waist measurement and then sized up, which resulted in my first version of this garment being WAY to big. Go by your bust measurement and don't size up; the elastic in the back will take care of you), and so having the ability to cut all my pieces down to a smaller size is what stopped this whole thing from being a fiasco. I also bought the pattern and had the ability to print it out literally 2 minutes later. There was no down time where I waited for a human to send me an activation code. Unlike the Cut/Sew dot Co pattern, this pattern did not give me a nightmare of a dress made by a person who had definitely never seen lolita fashion before and maybe had never seen clothing before.
Will I make this again? Maybe. I'd go through the pattern pieces and add grainlines and notches if I do, because those are actually important parts for the pattern.
Total cost of making this dress:
$74 for the dress fabric, underskirt fabric, interfacing, and headbow fabric (would have been slightly more without my employee discount)
$3 for lining fabric from the secondhand store
$1 for elastic ($7 for 100 yard roll, used 2 yd, rounded price up)
$7 for lace (14 yards at less than 50 cents a yard, bought in bulk from cheeptrims)
So if we are not counting the cost of the patterns, it's $85 for this dress. I don't usually count the patterns since they're reusable. However, if we're adding the patterns
$10.70 for the Little Betty JSK pattern
$4 for the now-deleted Holi Loli Headbow Pattern (You can aproximate the dimensions from this post if you're industrious)
And we have now been brought to $99.70, making this dress and headbow an under-$100 project.
A while back, I started a blog that was focused on making EGL fashion on a budget, and for some reason people liked it. I do hear a lot of people saying that handmaking lolita will cost as much as buying from brandname lolita. I like to post the costs of my projects so that I can talk about how I don't think that's true. I think it's entirely possible that you CAN easily spend more than offbrand, but I don't think it's an inherent thing. I think you would have to work pretty hard to buy fabric and trims that comes out to the $450 that buying a burando set is. I could have made this project with much less expensive fabric and still had a successful dress at the end. And what I have now is a very unique dress that means something to me (chronically ill and disabled=out of spoons=better wear the dress covered in spoons. It's a joke. Bonus joke for headbow being made of the fabric with the teapot lids because a headbow is a lid for your coord). It's something you can't buy.
So no, I don't think handmade lolita is dead. I don't think it's just as expensive as premade lolita. I do still think it's a good option for lolita on a budget.
Sincerely, Fight Me.
Pattern gets rated a 7/10, end result was pretty good but I had to already know how to sew to get there, required an easy modification but at the end of the day still required a modification, recommended for beginner lolitas who are not beginner sewists.
