Lodo Dresses

 

I feel like I always start out my blog posts saying how excited I am to be showing off my newest project. But really, I am super excited about my two new Lodo dresses! The Lodo dress is the newest pattern from True Bias. It is a knit dress with a slight cocoon shape, a v-neckline, and cut on cap sleeves. It comes in two lengths, knee-length and midi length. It is not my usual silhouette but it’s made me a cocoon dress convert!

I was a tester for this pattern and both of these dresses are from the initial tester pattern. (There was a minor change in the final pattern to the length of the back pieces as sort of a swayback adjustment.) When I first saw the dress I thought it was really pretty but I wasn’t sure how the cocoon shape would look on my pear-shaped body. This silhouette has been popular lately and I’ve seen it look great on so many different body types that I was cautiously optimistic.

The dress is designed for stable knits like Ponte, scuba, and interlock. I had a gift card to Girl Charlee and I ordered some of their solid Ponte to use for the dress. I’ve found their quality to be very hit or miss and thankfully this Ponte turned out to be a hit. It’s mostly poly, so not as nice as a rayon Ponte, but it’s pretty inexpensive and has washed nicely so far.

My first Lodo was the knee-length version and I decided to try color-blocking. I really wanted to put the fuchsia on the top of the dress since I felt like it would be more slimming to have the black on the bottom. Alas, I had to switch it in order to have enough of the black fabric to also make an all-black midi version. Slimming or not, I am totally in love with how the color blocking looks. I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I loved the fit of this dress. It is so comfortable and I feel really great wearing it.

 

I generally don’t love v-necks on myself, but I like how this one fits. The neckline and the sleeves are finished with woven facings and it makes the neck feel really stable. The pattern is very quick to sew (especially if you are not trying to match up color-blocked back and side seams!) with only the front, back, and facing pieces for the neck and sleeves.

My measurements put me sort of all over the place on the True Bias size chart. I went with a size 10 at the bust, graded to a 12 at the waist. My hips are right in between the size 14 and 16 so I did something a little different, which thankfully worked really well. I graded to a size 14 at the hips on the front piece and a 16 at the hips on the back piece. I really didn’t want the Ponte to hug my backside and grading to a larger size on the back gave me enough ease to feel comfortable. I also lengthened the dress by 1″.

Because I was so happy with my knee-length dress I moved along to the midi length. I am smitten with this in the midi length. I feel like this dress can be worn casually with flip flops or I could easily dress it up and wear it somewhere fancy (I never go anywhere fancy, but it’s nice to know what I will wear if anything ever comes up!)

I haven’t had an all-black dress in ages and I’m so glad that I have one now. I think the cocoon shape is a little more obvious on the midi length. The slit in the back looks so nice and adds walking ease. For both of my dresses, I used scraps of black Brussels washer linen for the facings. It would be fun to do contrast facing if I make this again. The facings on the sleeves might peek out with arm movement.

Wearing these dresses makes me feel just a bit more stylish than I really am. I’m glad I tried something different from my usual fit and flare silhouette. I really recommend this pattern if you’re looking for a great knit dress!

~Teri

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