Please join me in welcoming Marte to the blog today! She’s stopping by to share her Roller Skate dresses that she’s made over the years. Thanks for visiting us Marte!
Hi there! I’m Marte from Belgium. It’s such a pleasure to welcome you at the Oliver + S blog. You can follow my sewing adventures at Compagnie M. Even though I design my own patterns, I love to try patterns from other independent designers too. Besides my own patterns, the Roller Skate dress is probably the one I’ve used most since I started sewing about 7 years ago.
My first Roller Skate dress is the most refined one. For this version I went all the way and added the beautiful collar detail plus a tiny little bow. If I could buy the fabric again I would probably hack my own Oliver + S dress again. I’m sure it would still suit my girls well again.
I write girls because I have twin girls. They only have one wardrobe that they share! They are identical, but their characters can’t be more different.
While sewing my second Roller Skate dress, I really had Nore in mind. This became her birthday dress when she turned 4. I sewed a plain and simple Roller Skate dress. The fabric was so pretty that I didn’t want to add any other distracting elements. I only picked one large vintage button from my big collection. Matching the print at the back was the only difficult part but I think I managed to tackle this part pretty well.
When you read my third Roller Skate dress blog post, you can see in the first sentence that I just love this pattern a lot. It is such a quick sew. When I stumbled upon this fabric, I just had to sew a vintage inspired version. I used the same fabric twice: the orange version for the outside, the brown one for the lining. I adore special linings and I love this extra touch a lot.
And last week I’ve probably sewn my personal favorite Roller Skate dress. After attending a fabric design workshop, I spotted a super beautiful dress from an expensive French brand. As I couldn’t afford the dress, I just hacked it. I copied this fabric in Illustrator (for personal use only) and had it printed through Spoonflower. Since they opened a new unit in Germany, it has finally become affordable for us to have them ship to Belgium. Hooray! The fabric has a rather big print. That is why I used my favorite Oliver + S pattern again. With the built-in cap sleeves you don’t need to set in separate sleeves. This way you don’t have to cut and turn the print of such a pretty fabric. We’re thrilled with the result. Hopefully summer is in town soon!
Did I almost convince you to try this pattern? I hope so. And I’m not just writing this because I got the permission to post here. I’ve written the same review on my own blog several times already! Here’s my recap.
A basic Roller Skate dress is a super quick project. This is probably the main reason why I love this pattern so much. But there are more advantages: with these built–in cap sleeves, you don’t need a lot of fabric for this project. The dress height is more than enough. Plus it works well with any type of fabric. Whenever I use a fabric with a large print, the Roller Skate dress is my favorite pattern. Even though numbers 2 and 3 were sewn about 2 years ago, my girls can still wear them. Because of the wide design and the elastic around the chest, you can easily extend the lifetime of your Roller Skate dress. Just add a new elastic from time to time and wear this dress as a tunic or add a contrasting hem. How I love a sustainable wardrobe with many Roller Skate dresses! Thanks for the lovely pattern Oliver + S. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Marte for your beautiful examples of the Roller Skate. It’s one of my favourite patterns too; principally because the little girls I have sewn for, and do still really enjoy wearing it. I always find it a little tricky to sew but overall the pattern is worth the effort, and as you say, the owner gets a lot of wear from it, in all seasons.