I've completed my first dress from the Portabellopixie Gracie pattern - view B Tiered Dress. The pattern booklet is a bit more pricey than most, but since it comes with 4 different things to make (3 of which are quite different), you're basically paying for 3-4 patterns at once which makes it worth it (and I intend on making the other patterns down the road as well). Also, by buying it on Etsy with the fabric for the three dresses I plan to make, I got a nice discount.
First off, I was pleasantly suprised at how quickly and easily this dress came together. I would guess that I spent about 6 hours on it in total (although I'm not new to sewing). I spent a couple hours the first evening going over the instructions and cutting it all out. The next evening I hemmed the bottom, and did all the gathering and pinning of the layers; and the third evening I sewed it all up.
I did make one change to the pattern - I added an extra tier. Before I attached the bodice to the tiers, I realized that I wasn't happy with the finished length. I wanted the dress to fall below the knee, not above it (after all, it's a pretty twirly dress and you wouldn't want panties showing). And that was also one of the faults I found with the pattern, no finished measurements of the dress (at least that I could find). Had I known this before this point, I would have changed the width of the top tier to make more of a gathered look between the top one and the one I added (or changed the length of all the tiers before I started cutting).
Another thing I wanted to point out is the bias binding on the top edge of the collar. When I first read this in the instructions, I was slightly confused and had to read it over a couple times to understand the reasoning or concept of this. But once I actually did it, I found it easy and not very time consuming, and it gave a very nice finished look.
Overall, I found the pattern easy to follow. There were some minor missed instructions and pattern pieces that were stamped with wrong amounts to cut, but it was easy to figure out if you've sewn a couple dresses before. I will definitely be making this pattern again and look forward to trying the other ones out as well.
