Hi Friends,

Today I want to share my Celeste Dress by Itch to stitch with you. The Celeste dress is a breezy woven dress pattern featuring princess seams, a V neck and short sleeves. It has options and separate pattern pieces for cup sizes A, B, C, D and DD and the pattern itself goes up to a size 20. It has princess seams both on the front and back with gentle shaping at the waist. It also has nicely integrated slanted pockets. The pattern also includes complete instructions to install an invisible side zipper though you might not end up needing it.

Based on my bust size, I picked size 0 for the bust and blended out to size 2 at the waist and hips. The fitting section of the pattern includes clear instructions on how to blend sizes and what pattern pieces to alter which I found really helpful. Another simple but really important detail for me in this garment construction were the notches. Not only are they useful when aligning the princess seams and pocket placement but they also indicate the position of the bust, waist and hips so you know where to alter or where to start grading to the next size.

The pattern has 2 sets of lengthen/shorten lines one around the bodice and one around the skirt. I am 5′ tall with an average torso length and shorter legs, so I shortened only the skirt portion by 1/2″. The sleeves are quite roomy and didn’t require a bicep adjustment which I almost always end up needing on most sleeves.

The neckline finish in this pattern is really neat and because of the center seam in the front requires no tricky fabric manipulation to arrive at a nice sharp V-neck. I chose to hand stitch the facing to the bodice instead of stitching in the ditch from the the outside.

The fabric I used is a cotton sateen from India. It has a soft brushed feel to it and has a great drape. It feels and wrinkles like linen and was easy to work with. I was initially saving it for my daughter but it was just the right amount of yardage so I went ahead and used it for myself 🙂

Overall, I really enjoyed sewing this dress. It was easy to fit and easy to sew, just the perfect easy-breezy summer dress. The Celeste Dress pattern released yesterday and is on sale for a week if you want to get it. You can see more tester images for inspiration here.

Thank you for reading!

*If you buy the pattern through one of my affiliate links, I get a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you and you will help support my blogging adventure. Thank you.