“It’s like bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon, that’s what it is ... Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

This is what I thought of when I saw the Trine dress from Munich’s pattern company, Schnittchen Patterns. Released last year during our heatwave, Trine is a casual cocoon dress with two pockets in the front, and soft curves rounded at the front and back reaching just below the knees.

I’m really digging this whole cocoon silhouette with its mostly simple cut. A little tighter in the top, roomie around the waist and hip area whilst bringing it back in near the bottom; a total comfort zone pusher in my book. Even though it wasn’t love at first sight with the Cocoon Coat from Papercut Patterns, with this dress it definitely was and I’m not sure why.

For this project, I used a navy poly jersey with a 2-way stretch that I picked up from Weaverdee, one of my favourite places to buy fabrics at a good price. I initially bought 3.5m because I had been thinking about making a maxi something but decided that, actually, the Trine would be perfect for this. Schnittchen Patterns recommend lighter fabrics with a good amount of drape such as crepe, viscose, light cotton, fine linen or modal jersey.

I cut a UK size 8 based on my actual measurements rather than what the final garment measurements would be, as these weren’t included in the instructions. I wish they had been included in the pattern because I would have liked the top to fit well rather than being too baggy.

I really struggled to work out the lines to cut as there was no indication on each pattern piece which line represented which size. I always print in black and white rather than colour, so it was lost on me that on the digital files the different sizes are colour coded. Usually, when I know which size I’m choosing, I will try and only print my size rather than all those available.

At the start of the instructions, there is German, English and French but the actual instructions only came in 2 languages - German and English. This made the layout of instructions a little hard to follow. If they had split the instructions and pattern pieces out into the separate languages it would have been easier to understand. There were a few words and phrases in the English instructions which didn’t make sense but I suspect Google had a hand in the translations.

It would have been nice to have seen the line drawings and photography of the possible variations of sleeve - long, short and, from their website photography, sleeveless in the instructions.

In the middle of making the dress, I decided that my finished overlocked seams were looking a little messy and wanted to cover them up using bias binding. 6 hours and a whole confusing conversation later it was confirmed that I had done it wrong. As I didn't want to unpick my madness, I finished the one bias binding and left the rest.

There were quite a few changes that I made to this garment and because I had already made Papercut's Pattern Sapporo Coat I was able to pull my previous knowledge into this make.

I didn’t use lining for the pockets, I just used the same fabric as everything else. Perhaps if my main fabric was more structured it would of been nice to line the pockets.

• I used twill tape for places that could stretch more, like the neck seams, the diagonal seam joining the upper and lower front bodice pieces & curved side edges between the front and back pieces.

• The back piece was cut on the fold instead of having 2 separate pieces, giving that full unbroken length which, for me, helped balance out the busy front

• I ignored the recommended seam allowance and used 1cm all the way instead of 0.7cm. The changes of seam allowance throughout the pattern made me question every single stitch that I was doing. As my fabric was on the lightweight side I didn't want to risk the chance of sewing the wrong seam allowance and then have to unpick leaving holes in the fabric.

• The instructions were a little vague on how to finish the seams so I used my trusty overlocker, turned the edge up once and stitched close to the edge.

Would I make this again?

That is a tough question to answer as I found some more problems whilst photographing my friend for this blog post.

I noticed that the fabric puckered at the front, causing an unflattering bulge all the way down from the joining of the lower front pieces. When I saw this I thought I had caught part of the main fabric when I was finishing my bias bound seam, but a thorough check showed this wasn’t the case. It was almost like I had a drawstring gather but without using string or creating a channel for use. I had to compare the front of my dress to the images from Schnittchen’s website and Instagram, as the front of the dress is so seamless, but still couldn’t find a reason for the puckering.

My poly viscose was far more slippery than I thought it would be; I didn’t notice until it was too late that it had moved and stretched a couple of millimetres, causing misalignment. I was thinking about cutting the lower front piece on the fold to minimize the chance of it all not matching up and also to give me that seamless finish I sought.

Another point to consider would be having completely separate pieces for the pockets as I really do like the lines on the front where the pockets lie, but the tops of the pockets rolled out constantly. This caused bulges and the front lower half was beginning to look rather unflattering. A possible method would be to just remove the pockets from the front and move them to the side seams. This would allow me to keep the lines at the front and to have larger pockets, as the loose fit of the dress would easily hide how big the pockets were.

The sleeves also ended up being tighter than what I anticipated and I would have definitely sewn two sizes up in the sleeve width to give more ease in arm movements.

On the whole this dress and the process was far more difficult than I anticipated, even though I had previously made a similar styled garment. It was like they were two extremes of one style. I’m not over joyed by the finished garment but I wouldn’t want to see this go to waste. I think it’s time to call in a hack to see if I can finish the garment in a manner that I would be happy to gift to my friend.

Back to the question above, would I make this again despite all my difficulties? I can’t say for certain but maybe, after all it is a new year and I still love Trine Schroede’s yellow version of the dress. I would like to try with a heavier weight fabric and only after I’ve solved the mystery of all that puckering.