Bringing the glam in my new Ellington & Mansfield Dress mashup

Is this the most glam dress I’ve ever worn?! I think so! Introducing—at long last—my Ellington Dress, mix-and-matched with the Mansfield Dress bodice overlay.

Now, WHY have I never had such an insanely glam dress before? Well quite simply neither ready-to-wear dresses nor sewing patterns like this have ever come in my size, and, I never owned a strapless bra before either, because, ditto.

But once more, owning a sewing pattern company that actually knows what to do with big boobs has changed everything! We released the Symmes Strapless Bra, the Mansfield Dress, and finally the Ellington Dress, and voila – the dress of my dreams.

The Ellington has a boned bodice, and is designed not only to work beautifully with the Symmes Bra (nothing peeking out, thank you very much), but also to mix-and-match with all the patterns in the Upton line – so that means the Upton Dress & Skirt, the Mansfield Dress, and the Gilmore Skirt (for now!). Naturally, as there are now well over 1,000 combinations we weren’t able to even scratch the surface in our “official” Ellington photoshoot, so I decided when I created my own to show you another amazing combination: the Ellington with the Mansfield bodice overlay.

My Ellington was made with lightweight italian silk faille from Gorgeous Fabrics, and the amazing beaded tulle is from Mood (and comes in a bunch of colors!).

There are various ways you can combine the two patterns, but in this case, we (aka Jen on my team) sewed the Mansfield overlay directly into the waist seam of the Ellington underneath, and then at the back because the tulle was so fine we simply finished the back edges and added a few hook and eyes.

The very first strapless dress of my life and dare I say, I feel like a total diva.

What are your Ellington mash-up plans? I cannot wait to see what everyone makes!