The Fabric Fox Creatives is our way of collaborating and sharing the work of talented, crafty writers. Every few weeks we will share a guest blog from someone who has made something using our range of fabrics. Harriet wanted to review the Freya dress from Tilly and The Buttons' new book Stretch! Make Yourself Comfortable Sewing With Knit Fabrics so we sent her one of our jerseys to make it with...

Tilly Walnes, from the legendary (legendary among sewists, anyway!) Tilly and the Buttons has just released her second book, and it hasn't disappointed! I've seen so many patterns from 'Stretch' popping up on my Instagram feed, and I decided that it was high time to make one of my own – so I decided to totally copy everyone else, and make the Freya dress.

I chose to use of the gorgeous cotton jerseys that The Fabric Fox stocks, a lovely pale aqua colour with a 'heathered' finish, so that the colour isn't completely flat. I'm usually a very big fan of prints, and this is as plain as I've ever dared to go, but I think that the sort of multi-tonal look that it has really helped to ease me into the world of block colour.

I also think that the plain colour works brilliantly with the addition of the ruffle; it really helps to show it off! As it's a cotton jersey, it's really lovely and soft on the skin, but not a bother to work with at all – the best of both worlds!

Tilly's instructions were, as always, a delight. At no point was I lost or confused – she even explains the (admittedly very simple) maths to work out the length of fabric needed to create the ruffle in a way that ended up with me totally able to understand everything!

The dress itself is super duper easy to construct – if you choose to do the pleated ruffle like I did, that's the most time-consuming part! Otherwise though, there's no sleeve-easing, no darts, no buttons or zips - nothing complicated at all! Usually I end up taking a little break before sleeve insertion to build up morale, but seeing as these were inserted on the flat, it really was a piece of cake.

I love the amount of variation that you can do with this pattern too, there are three neckline options mentioned, but that doesn't mean you can get more inventive and think of another – personally, I'm looking forward to having a go at adding a little ruffle around the mock neckband!

Overall, I can't really get across my love for this dress; it was all made up and ready to wear within a few hours, and there weren't any elements that I found frustrating at all. I'd highly recommend both this pattern and this fabric (especially together!), and think that they would both work really well for your first, or your hundredth project using jersey.

You can also watch Harriet's Freya dress sewalong video over on her YouTube channel.

You can follow Harriet Johnson on Instagram and you can find out more about her sewing addiction over at Hobbling Handmades. Harriet also has a YouTube channel where she vlogs about her passion for making her own handmade wardrobe.