This is Kachi - Milkmaid Sewing Pattern Review

Hey there! I’m Emily and I love sewing, but I’m really good at buying patterns and never getting around to sewing them. So I’ve decided to hold myself more accountable by posting the projects I sew. I design sewing patterns myself, but I really enjoy seeing what fellow indie pattern designers are making.

Today’s pattern is by This is Kachi. It is her Anika Milkmaid dress. Overall I love this dress. There were a few quirks with the pattern and assembly that I’ll talk about below.

Fabric

I think a lot of fabrics will work well for this pattern. I am using a cotton fabric here. Actually, my fabric is from a bedsheet.

Pro tip – shop the bedding section first to find lots of yardage at a super low price. I could imagine this dress in linen for a summery look or a silk/satin for a more formal date night look.

Pattern

I gave this pattern a four out of five stars because overall it is very clear and easy to put together, but the seam allowance is not included.

The pattern comes in letter, A4, and A0 sizes to work with different paper sizes and printers. That’s great! The only bummer is not having the seam allowance already included in the pattern.

That means you need to leave a little margin around each piece before cutting it out. This stressed me a bit as I thought I might forget and need to cut some pieces more than once. I actually did fine in the end.

The benefit is that you can choose your ideal seam allowance, which in my case is 1/2″.

Directions

I also gave the directions a four out of five. The directions that come with the pattern are very basic. It is literally a one page written page without any diagrams. But she does have a very helpful youtube video that guides you through how to make the dress. The video is extremley helpful, but does lack a few details.

The first part that is a bit confusing in the construction comes when it’s time to insert the cups. You need to finish the top edge the side front piece and match the cup to the finished edge. Otherwise you will have a raw unfished edge in the end. Second, you need to fold the center front piece down a little. This squares off the center front and makes it possible to sew the cups in place.

The second step that I needed some extra help on was how to attach the second elastic to the sleeve. The first elastic simply goes into the hemmed edge of the top of the sleeve. The second elastic sits a few inches above the edge of the sleeve. I needed to work out how to attach the elastic. I found a solution of folding the bottom edge up about 1.5″ then I sewed a second stitch a little more than 1/4″ away from the first stich line. This created a channel for me to insert the second elastic.

The rest of the directions were clear and it was quick and easy to put this dress together.

Fit

I gave this dress a 5/5 for the fit, but I did need to make a little adjustment on the skirt. According to her size chart, I was a size large. In general, I am a true medium in ready-to-wear clothing so I was a bit surprised. But I used her scale and proceeded to cut the large for myself. The top part of the dress fits perfectly. But the skirt ended up being quite large. I ended up taking in about 2″ from the center back seam.

I’m not sure if this is from me not taking away enough while sewing the slit or if the pattern was too large. The were also very few details on how to sew the slit and what seam allowance to use. I used a 1/2″ seam allowance for the slit.

Although I removed 2″ from the center back seam the skirt ended up fitting perfectly with the top. I did have a little bit of a hard time matching the princess seam line in the front with the skirt slit. I was able to finagle them to match up.