Pattern Description:
MISSES' DRESS: A, B: Close-fitting (?) and lined. No provision made for above waist adjustment.
FABRICS: Lightweight Linen, Sateen, Lightweight Crepe.
Pattern Sizing:
Combinations: (10-12-14-16-18), (18-20-22-24)
I made a ten, the smallest size available for this pattern. It runs large, and has some matching and easing in at least 8 places, but turned out a nice make.
My Fabric: Cherry red cotton sateen with Lycra.
Rather than make the shorter version (which I preferred) and altering to add the typical two inches, I made the long version so as to easily shorten it to the exact length required.
The zipper is to be installed before the sides are stitched to the fronts in one of the views.
My tip,
Pin the points that should match (notches, and hem) and go from there. If something looks wrong DON'T cut off the excess. Unpin and start over. The result is well worth the care.
My thoughts: To qualify as VERY easy, a pattern should be free of anything mind numbingly tedious, fiddly, frustrating and/or time consuming.
A lined dress with 8 total convex/concave matches, 4 being in possibly slippery lining fabric, (not counting sleeve caps) is a challenging and interesting endeavor, certainly doable... but not qualifying as Very Easy in my book.
When making a simple princess seam dress one expects a small amount of this over the bust area - standard procedure.
Sometimes beginners are unaware of how to handle this, generally just sewing it down from one end to the other, and then feeling there is something wrong with the pattern because things didn't line up, or cut off the excess at the bottom, unaware of the effect this will have on the drape of the garment. It is an easy dress in every other way, especially if you don't do any modifications.
To match the pieces in this pattern it is necessary to continue to ease and pin for some distance BEYOND the main curved areas, making it a much bigger project than a standard princess seam dress. There is a lot of extra fullness that must be incorporated from the HEM up.
The two sets of instructions for A or B view are so different that you must commit to sleeves or no sleeves from the very beginning. The timing of zipper application and what order you do these steps is different enough that you really can't jump ship to the other view easily once you are almost finished. If you are putting in sleeves, and made no adjustment to the sides, it is easier.
If you took up the shoulder at all - it is CRITICAL that you lower the crossing bands correspondingly! To just set them in place as though no changes were made, would greatly affect the look.
Also, if you take in the sides of the dress a lot, you need to then adjust the sleeve dramatically or not use one.
Even at hem, photo showing area of fabric needed to be eased in between notches on side pie
.Photo showing the amount of ease between notches.
I tried to feed the fabric under the needle properly, with no pushing or pulling keeping the seam in it's natural curved state.
Flickr Set of project
Pattern Review
DSCN2085-1, originally uploaded by Terri's Sewing Room.
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