Dress Pattern testing

Asta – Perfect Elegance & Style

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

It has been a while since I tested for Christina from Wardrobe By Me, but when I saw her testing call for the Asta Jersey Dress, I just knew I had to jump on board. The Asta is a simple knit dress with a flattering bodice with several neckline options. You can choose between a high turtleneck, a low turtleneck and a boatneck. And the boatneck option convinced me instantly. There’s something about boatnecks that I just love. I think they’re so flattering, and I feel instantly elegant when wearing something with a boatneck. How do you feel about boatnecks and slash necklines? Is this a kind neckline that feels so good to wear for everyone, or is this just my personal preference/my bodyshape?

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

The dress comes with several sleeve options. You can make the dress sleeveless, or choose pretty much every length from short sleeves all the way to long sleeves. There are four skirt pieces, meaning that there’s a seam in the middle of the front and back skirt to create visual interest. And the dress comes with patch pockets, which can easily be omitted, too. My fabric is so busy that I chose to omit both the middle skirt seam and the pockets. I didn’t really feel this fabric needed any more details and this dress was my first sample of the pattern, so I wanted to keep things easy. And, to be totally honest, sewing patch pockets made of stretchy fabric onto equally stretchy fabric isn’t really my favourite chore.

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

So here is my Asta, as easy as it can get, made of six pattern pieces and five seams (plus four hems). Ending up with a dress like this after cutting so few pattern pieces and sewing so few seams is pretty impressive, right??

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

The fabric I used is a cotton jersey from Fabric Godmother, I bought it last spring and I really think I found the perfect pattern to use it with. It’s not too thin, not too stretchy and the print is cute, but not overwhelming, The only thing I don’t really like about this fabric is that it looks like the dragonflies are kind of “stamped” on top of the fabric, using pretty thick white paint. I’m curious to see how the print holds up after washing it a few times!

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

I made a size 32 with no alterations, and I love how the dress fits in the bust area. The bodice is pretty long, since it really depends on the stretchiness of your fabric how low your bodice is “dragged” after attaching the skirt. I suggest to just baste the skirt on and to decide if and where to shorten the bodice afterwards. Most people will most likely not need to lengthen the bodice. The skirt is designed to be longer than knee length, I have shortened my skirt just a little bit for this dress (I’m 175 cm tall), but took off about 15 cm off my next dress, which I intended to hit right above the knee.

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

The only thing that didn’t work out perfect for me was the width of the shoulders, but that’s not really a surprise, since I am often doing a wide shoulder adjustment. Because of my shoulders the boatneck doesn’t look as wide as I would have liked it to be, either. I’ll show you my final version of the Asta in a couple of days and you’ll see there how I modified both the width of the shoulders and the width of the boatneck to make it just perfect.

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

That being said, the placement of the shoulder seams on this dress doesn’t make me any less fond of this beautiful dress! I chose to make this dress a little longer than my “usual” dress length, and I love it. Not for all of my dresses, but I definitely do for this particular dress.

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

You can buy the Asta Jersey Dress here, it’s on sale for 9 USD (instead of 11 USD) until February 2nd.

Sew Mariefleur Asta Dress Wardrobe By Me

– This blog post contains affiliate links. However, all opinions are, as always, my own. I’ve been blown away by this dress before even knowing about the affiliate option! 😉 – 

9 comments on “Asta – Perfect Elegance & Style

  1. It is so lovely!! I agree, the boatneck looks very feminine and elegant on you. I love boatneck, but for some reason I don’t find it looks as nice on me. Somehow on me it manages to make my shoulders look even broader… I wish this style of neckline looked better on me, I love it! I’ll have to check the pattern out for sure 🙂

  2. Sam the Aussie

    Just lovely -so easy to wear and lots of style too. How do you stand in the snow and not freeze your feet off? From down under – 38C (102F) here today …phew Sam the Aussie

  3. It really is a beautiful dress that works for you perfectly. Boatnecks are not really my thing. Somehow I do feel uncomfortable with them. The pattern sounds very interesting. But what really got me most about your photos – the combination of the shoes you are wearing and the snow?? Watching those pictures made my feet freeze immediatly ?
    Julia

  4. […] Asta – Perfect Elegance & Style […]

  5. Elke De Vuyst

    What a beautiful dress. It fits you really nice. I recently bought the asta jersey dress. However, I do have a problem with choosing the right size. If a choose my size based on the bust measurements, I should choose size 32, blending to a size 36 at the waist. However, if I look to the measurements of the finished garment itself, it would be better that I choose a size 36. I really have nog ideaal what to do. I hope you can help me anders find the time to respond to this message.

    Greetings, Elke

    • Hi Elke, thank you so much! Just go with your body measurements. Since this is a knit dress with a tight fit, the bodice has some negative ease, making the garment itself smaller than your body measurements. As long as you measure yourself correctly, you can trust the Wardrobe By Me size chart! Have fun sewing!

  6. […] is the third Asta Dress by Wardrobe by Me that I’ve made. You can find the other two dresses here and here – both have boat necks and the blog posts include some in-depth review of the […]

  7. Hello. I would like to know how you omit the middle seam of the skirt? Thanks.

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