We are very excited to announce the relaunch of our Tulip Dress! We have listened to your feedback and have acted on it.
While the shape has been tweaked and updated, the biggest change is the addition of three-quarter length sleeves. As the Tulip Dress works particularly well in medium and heavier weight fabrics, it makes sense to be able to add a warmer version to your winter wardrobe. The delicate, darted shape of our new sleeves echos the tulip shape of the skirt.
You can download the sleeve pattern HERE by double clicking and saving it to your desktop.
Although we have made some tweaks to the shape of the original Tulip Dress, the sleeves will still work on the old pattern. One of the amendments we have made is to shorten the cap sleeves – this prevents an issue with ripping at the underarm which one or two people were having.
How to tell if you have the original version or the updated?
If your pattern comes with sleeves, it is the new one. If it doesn’t, then it is the original. Before you add the new sleeves to the original version, I would recommend that you change the existing sleeve as shown in the diagram. The dashed green line is the shape of the original. To make the cap sleeve more like the new version and to ensure that the sleeve fits, move the point of the sleeve in towards the body by 2.5cm (along the existing line) and then up by 2cm (at right angles to the first line). It sounds complicated, but I think the diagram makes it clear.
If you purchase the current (new) version of the Tulip Dress, no tweaks need to be made.
INSTRUCTIONS – ADDING THE SLEEVE
Attach your sleeves after you have stitched the shoulder seams (but before you have stitched the sides of the dress). With right sides together, fold each of the SLEEVE darts in half and stitch to the balance mark. Neatly finish the cuff edge with a zigzag stitch or overlocker. With right sides together, align the straight edge of the sleeve with the cap sleeve and stitch. Finish the edges together neatly with a zigzag stitch or an overlocker. When you sew up the sides of the dress, also stitch from the underarm to the cuff of the sleeve. Hem your sleeves with a 3cm fold.
The Tulip Dress suits most mid-weight fabrics such as cotton, linen, denim, corduroy, lightweight wool, scuba and double knit. Choosing something like a drapey viscose or a very light weight cotton means that fabric doesn’t have enough body to hold the structure, so while it still works, you can loose the lovely tulip shape of the dress. The fabric I have used here is a linen / cotton blend from Fabworks called Twilight Bamboo – Linen / Cotton. It costs £12/metre
