Style Arc Dress Patterns – Sydney & Blanche

I did a LOT of sewing in 2025, all of it clothing. After gaining weight with menopause, I needed to rebuild most of my wardrobe. Not only did I replace all my pants, I made several jumpsuits and dresses.

My favorite pattern company at the moment is Style Arc out of Australia. The patterns are classics and the size 8 fits me well without any adjustments.

The two Style Arc dress patterns I made were the Sydney Dress Extension Pack and the Blanche Knit Dress.

 

 

I went a little crazy with the Sydney Dress in more ways than one. I chose to make the dress with the bodice that crosses over in the front and the three-quarter length straight sleeves.

Nothing crazy about that, but I decided to make the dress in a pale blue, yellow and white plaid. For the first time making this pattern, that was a crazy decision. This is a dress with six slightly rounded skirt panels and if I wanted the dress to not look like a hodge-podge of plaid, I needed to carefully line up the pattern pieces when I cut them out. Consequently, this took a lot of time.

As I was looking at the pattern pieces for the bodice, I saw something concerning. The front pieces didn’t look as long as the back pieces. Before cutting out the bodice in the plaid, I cut it out in white fabric to see if my assessment was correct.

Because of the difference in size between the front and back, I thought maybe I had traced the wrong size onto wax paper.

(That’s a trick I learned from my sister-in-law. If you don’t want to cut into a paper pattern because you aren’t sure which size you need or what adjustments need to be made between sizes, trace the pattern pieces onto wax paper and use the wax paper versions on your fabric. Sharpie markers work okay for this, but I have found Bic Permanent Markers are even better. They don’t seem to get coated with wax and stop working like the Sharpies do.)

I double- and triple-checked my wax paper pieces against the printed pattern and I had the correct size. I wondered if maybe the shoulder seams were meant to roll forward on the finished dress, so I contacted Style Arc to ask. They are very responsive via email, though you do have to mind the time difference depending on where you are located in relation to Australia. Style Arc also has a variety of tutorials on their website in case you get stuck.

Turns out, my bodice was correct. The shoulder seams do roll forward when you sew the side seams. With that question out of the way, I was able to cut the bodice out of my plaid fabric.

For as complex as this dress looks, it wasn’t too hard to sew (especially if you don’t have to line up a plaid!). Of course, I added the optional pockets to mine. One odd thing about the pattern instructions … they don’t include the step for sewing the bodice to the skirt. Y’all have to figure that out yourself. Because I am an old hand at sewing tank tops to pants bottoms, this was not an issue for me, so I didn’t go looking for a tutorial.

Here’s how the dress turned out.

Note how the horizontal lines of the plaid line up across the width of the skirt. I’m very proud of how that worked out because it took so much patience prior to cutting.

Here’s the second area where I went crazy. I liked this pattern so much that I made two more dresses from it, one out of a floral knit material and another out of a cotton floral material. (I may just have a wee bit of a thing for bold patterns.) These were much easier to cut out without all the pattern matching.

Here is the floral knit version.

And here is the cotton floral Sydney dress.

Between making the second and third Sydney dress, I paused to make the Blanche Knit Dress, choosing a navy blue rib knit fabric. (Proving I can choose a subdued, solid color fabric when I want.)

This was a much easier pattern to cut out and sew. It has fewer pattern pieces and a straightforward design. Here is the result.

One thing I appreciated about this pattern were the simple details that made the finished dress look more professional.

Along the neckline, there is under-stitching, which normally doesn’t show on the exterior of a garment, but in this case, it actually provides a visible finish to the neckline.

Another simple finishing detail that elevates this dress is the double-stitching around the hem of the sleeve.

I hope it shows up clearly in this photo.

If you are looking for great sewing patterns, check out Style Arc.

Now that I’ve spent a year rebuilding and expanding my wardrobe to the point that my closet is ready to burst, it’s time to turn my attention to other projects. I’m not sure what my next fiber arts project will be, but you’re likely to hear about it here.