Skip to main content

Cashmerette - Hampden Dress - 1111

Cashmerette - Hampden Dress


Breeze into summer with the Hampden Dress! The Hampden is a woven dress designed specifically for curves with princess seams, an elasticated back waistband, and zero gaping thanks to a faux button placket. Its short sleeves, knee-length skirt, and roomy patch pockets make it a great addition to any spring and summer wardrobe.
Hampden Dress

But that's not all! Mix and match the Hampden with the Holyoke Maxi Dress & Skirt's sleeveless bodice, maxi-length skirt, and inseam pockets for even more sundress and skirt possibilities. 

Holyoke pattern

Combinations of Holyoke and Hampden

Recommended Fabrics - Light- to mid-weight woven fabric such as cotton lawn, linen, or rayon. Use drapey fabrics for a flowy look or firmer fabrics for a more structured result. 

I used Neon leopard printed rayon from Spotlight. It has a very slight stretch. 


I had to place my pattern pieces carefully to print match the design across the front and around my dress.


Sizing 0-16 and 12-32 in the one PDF Pattern. I made a size 20 G cup.



I didn’t make any fit changes to this dress, it is designed to be put on over the head so the back has elastic in the waistband to make it fit the body. It’s not a tight fitting dress. 

With this pattern you can sew the front button placket shut so it is always closed or have it as a functional closure. I went with closed and stitched the buttons to all the layers. 


Design changes

The Hampden dress was designed to mix and match with another Cashmerette pattern, the Holyoke dress. I prefer the A line shape of the Holyoke’s skirt so I used the Hampden bodice and the Holyoke skirt for my version. 


I cut the length of the Holyoke skirt to the same length that the Hampden is designed to be. I also prefer side seam pockets to patch pockets so that’s what I did. 


Wash away glue used to stick bias roulo to paper.

I added a decorative detail to the round neckline. 

I cut bias strips of my rayon fabric and sewed these into tubes which I pressed flat. I drew the neckline shame onto paper and then added in the seam allowance and a protrusion of above the stitching line.

Starting at the centre front I marked space off. I cut the bias tube into lengths and using a sewing adhesive stick I glued the bias into scallops.

bias trim stitched to front neckline 
front neckline facing
Facing understitched




I have also made the Cashmerette Lenox dress, which I have reviewed on this blog. These are similarly patterns with princess seam bodice and button fronts but I found Hampden a much easier dress to make because it is not as fitted as the Lenox dress. I only made one toile of the Hampden but I made several of the Lenox. If you want to try this style of dress I recommend the Hampden for a beginner. The Hampden is only available with a subscription to the Cashmerette Pattern Club however but it’s well worth it I think. 


Lenox Dress

Popular posts from this blog

Bojagi CBD

  CBD BOJAGI Art Quilt Photo by David Leane, Photography by David In 2014 I attended the Geelong Textile Forum, studying the technique of making silk Bojagi garments with tutor Catherine O'Leary. Bojagi is a Korean wrapping cloth. While the technique fascinated me I had no use for a transparent silk organza garment so I sold mine to anther student attending the forum. I still wanted to use the skills I had learned but utilise them for something very different.  Bojagi jacket and hat Every 2 years the South Australian Quilters Guild holds an art quilt exhibition called "Dare to Differ". I have previously entered this exhibition twice and you can read about the creation of my "Cityscape" quilt on this blog. For the 2015 exhibition I chose to use the Bojagi seaming technique to create a map quilt showing a scale street map of   Adelaide,  the capitol city of my home state, South Australia. This is the...
Read more

Generational Christening Gown

Generational Christening Gown My Aunt passed away in late July 2021 and my cousin gifted me her wedding dress. At my Aunts funeral, her grandson expressed his deep sadness that his Nanna would not be at his wedding in November 2021. She had been greatly looking forward to it after a very long wait for him to propose to his girlfriend of 10 years. My Aunts Wedding Dress I do not have children of my own, so once I received her dress and had it cleaned and decided to create a unique Christening Gown from it. I wanted it to be for my extended family to hand down through the generations.  My Aunt was my Mothers Sister so I decided to use wedding dresses from the matriarchal side of my family and the future bride. I have had a signed copy of Martha Pullen's Grandmother's Hope Chest since 1993 when I met her in Sydney Australia at a Pfaff sewing machine convention. I won it in a competition! I then worked in sewing machine retail and was 20 years old with hopes to have my own family o...
Read more

'Sewing Patterns' APP review

'Sewing Patterns' App review The app I was using to comprehensively catalog my sewing patterns crashed  when an iOS update I did on my iPad was no longer supported by the app.  This was in October 2020 and because the developers had not bothered to update the app in years. No warning, just gone. I discovered this while shopping for fabric and trying to work out how much I needed for the pattern I planned to use.  So I took this as an opportunity to cull and resort my patterns which I have been collecting for over 30 years.  The next month was devoted to this undertaking and surprisingly, it was a very enjoyable experience to reacquaint myself with my patterns.  I began by sorting my patterns into defined sections in my pattern cabinet.  I then had to make a complete list ready to upload into a new app. Now I had to “audition” potential app’s for suitability. I did some research and consulted other social media forums for options. The previous app I used was...
Read more