Striped Trillium Maxi Dress

Quite possibly the most-emailed question I receive is “when will you bring back the Washi Expansion Pack”? This is a hard question to answer because we’ve had the pattern pieces for it graded into a larger size range (the same one Washi, since renamed Trillium is currently offered in) for at least five (maybe more?) years. And for the past however-many years, Elli and I have side-eyed the Expansion Pack as a potential project for the upcoming year and then…decided against it.

To back up for those who aren’t familiar: The Washi Expansion Pack,* or “XP,” as we lovingly called it, was a pattern add-on that I created in 2013 on the heels of the Washi Dress pattern release in 2012, a pattern that turned out to be extremely popular and launched my accidental career designing women’s sewing patterns. The XP offered a number of bow, sleeve, and collar add-ons that could be used to create new variations and mods (or hacks, if you prefer) of the original Washi Dress. It was very much designed around all of the many variations and spinoffs of Washi that I had made for myself, and was offered in response to the huge demand from readers who commented or wrote in requesting a pattern for all the mods to they could make them, too. The beauty of it really was that it was all based on the same base pattern, which always has been been my favorite way to sew.

*If I’m not mistaken, this is the very first documented use of the term “Expansion Pack” in the sewing pattern world. I myself pilfered the term from the video game industry, where it was already in wide use; my own personal exposure an occupational hazard of marrying Mr Rae, an avid and self-professed Video Game Fanatic. It has since been used by many other indie pattern designers for their own pattern add-ons.

All these “add-ons” increased the value of the original pattern, which was great, and probably helped sales. But looking back now, writing all of the instructions and figuring out the charts for all of those extras was extremely time-intensive; the sewing instructions for each variation took a long time to write and create, and bundling them up in an un-confusing format was tricky. This was one of those patterns that turned into a real bear while were working on it, to the point that when it was over, I thought, why did I ever think this was a good idea?? (Though of course then I did it again when we made the Geranium Expansion Pack, so I guess I’m a real glutton for punishment).

As of this writing the updated Trillium (formerly Washi) pattern now has more sizes and a second set of bodices (“C/D”), which means there are two sets of collars and sleeves (the A/B and C/D bodices have different neckline and armhole lengths). It also has both metric and imperial measurements, layered pattern files — A0 copyshop, print-at-home files, and projector files. It’s going to be a lot of time and work to bring it back, test out the new pieces, etc. Meanwhile, my business is now the smallest it’s ever been: Both Elli and I only work a handful of hours each week, and the business makes far less income than it used to. So the short answer to the original question is: we’re don’t have time to work on this (very big) project.

Probably the biggest hurdle, though, is that I keep getting hung up on the size range; after we updated Trillium, I expanded the adult size range again, which means that Trillium — my most popular adult pattern — isn’t even offered in our largest sizes. It seems wrong to consider putting all that work into updating the Expansion when there are folks who would be interested in making Trillium but are currently out of the size range; it seems to me that energy should be put into adding more sizes to Trillium, first.

So to answer the original question of will the Trillium Pattern ever get an Expansion Pack? I don’t know. I’m tired. I’ve had so many other projects that I am excited about, like launching Sapphire last year, and not enough time to execute them all.

Making this dress has been my first step forward. The other day when we were discussing this project yet again, Elli came up with a creative idea to re-release the Expansion in a different format than I had thought of before. It was a neat idea, but it needs to be fleshed out a bit yet, so we’re going to chat about it more…and see what happens.

V. unsatisfying! Sorryyyy!!!

But forget about that, do you like my dress.

The inspo for this dress came last year when I saw this dress from Curator on Pinterest that looked like exactly something I could recreate with a wide stripe fabric and the Expansion Pack. I found the striped fabric at Stonemountain and Daughter, one of my go-to locations when I’m shopping for apparel fabrics. The base pattern is the Trillium Dress of course, with a gathered skirt and 1” elastic in back instead of the shirring (View B of the Expansion, or this tutorial), and used the pointed sleeve and lining from View C of the Expansion Pack. I also lengthened the skirt to make it a maxi-dress (not part of the Expansion, but tutorial for that here). The upper portion of the dress is lined, and the lower portion is not. And of course, it has POCKETS!!

The question of where will I wear this has yet to be answered, as it is currently still not warm enough to wear this without a sweater over it. I could imagine wearing this dress to a birthday party or wedding this spring, though most of my friends and family are in the uncoupling phase of life rather than the coupling phase. If I ever travel again, possibly to some warm locale? Only time will tell.

Sending love and hugs in this dark time.

Rae