4 days later...

I can't remember what I wore on Saturday, it was me-made, possibly the Love Notions Laundry Day Tee...

Sunday was a pyjama day, while I was sewing up my next thing, Monday was my cherries sleeveless top.

Today!  Today I wore my new dress!

This is Simplicity 1080, the Dottie Angel dress.  You might have seen it around, I first spotted it in a magazine a few months ago and really loved it, but held off buying it for ages.  I finally stumped up for it a month or so ago, and bought the green fabric at the time.  You can't really tell, but the pattern is little diamond shapes of red purple and yellow dots.

Then I got the purple, which is a linen, a couple of weeks after that, it was only £3.95 a metre, and the pockets were from a fat quarter in my stash which by total fluke just fell right for the colour and pattern.

I traced it and made a muslin in some old sheeting to see if I needed a bust adjustment, and it seemed that I didn't so I cut the pieces on Saturday and started sewing on Sunday.

Now, I don't know whether you've read any reviews of this pattern, but they are a bit of a mixed bunch!  The pattern itself is lovely, but the instructions are completely faffy and madly inconsistent.

For about half of it you're being told to cover all the seams with bias tape and then all of a sudden you're chucked into french seam world.  And I have NO idea why it's like that, or why the pash for bias covered seams.  Essentially it's a simple construction tricked out to be quite labour intensive.  Which is great if you've got like a YEAR to make it.  Or fancy showing off your seams*.  But if, like me, you've got a couple of hours for 2 or 3 evenings, Nope, nopity nope.  No bias covering for me.

So I mostly ignored the bias stuff and did my own thing.

Ok.  So I joined the contrast panel with a regular seam and then pressed it downwards and top-stitched to catch it all.

The shoulders and sides are french seams, which I'm really glad I did because the fabrics turned out to have some serious fray-tendencies.  I made my own bias tapes for the pockets, neck and arm-holes.

And I hand did the hem - I was going to twin-needle it but the linen is one of those that ONLY CREASES WHEN YOU SIT ON IT!  Pressing it is largely ineffective so it needed pins in horizontally and a lot of stopping and hand-folding.  Again.  And again.  And again.

I also hand-finished the neck binding.

The side ties were a bit high so I moved them down.  I might put them back up again a little bit, if I can be bothered. (Clue: I probably can't be bothered).

However, it was worth all the faff, I absolutely LOVE the colour combination - SUFFRAGETTES! - and I really love the length.

I wore it to work today and felt great.

Also, POCKETS!  I love a dress with pockets.

Anyway, if you're thinking about making this pattern and being put off by the reviews or the instructions, pah, JUST DO IT!  But ignore the bias seam covering crazy-pants, unless that's totally your bag, in which case, y'know, knock yourself out!



*Disclaimer: I do like showing off my seams when I've done an especially nice one.  A french seam is thing of beauty.  Do those and show them off.