Simplicity 8504

I was intending to wear this dress on Christmas, but when I sewed it up I thought it would be a good idea to leave out the sleeve lining. Don't do this, it's what keeps the sleeve up! When I put the dress on the sleeves were just hanging there and were very long. I tried adding elastic and that didn't work. Much later I cut off about three inches of the upper and lower sleeve and sewed it all back together, but it doesn't look like it should.

The skirt is cut very narrow, just like the drawings show, so add more if you usually need to. Also, make the matching belt if you have enough fabric, it would really make the dress look better.

This ended up being my Easter dress, yes, it was snowing. I have packed away my cut-out winter patterns and have started sewing summer things now. I'm sewing masks too, but my max is ten per day, I don't want to feel like I'm forced into making masks and strangely enough want to be thinking good thoughts when I sew them.

Today it might get up to sixty, but I will have to clear the gardens of leaves before doing anymore sewing.

Hope you and your families are still healthy and happy and not too stressed out!

BurdaStyle 3/2018 #125

This dress I do like and I didn't really have any fitting issues. I did make the skirt a little wider to fit the hips, but in hind sight you would not need to do this because there is plenty of room.

When I was cutting the fabric for the skirt I cut it wrong (the stripes going across like it was one piece) and had to order more from JoAnn. Have you ever noticed how hit or miss ordering fabric from their website is? In a nutshell, it's terrible!

Had a little warm spell, but right now the water in the birdbath is frozen.

Advance 9718

 I was going to wear this today. I put it on and it did fit, but it just looked sad and frumpy, and the buttons were in the wrong place too! When I said it fit, it was just okay, once again the shoulders were too wide and I needed to pinch out some size in the armhole by the bust.

Normally I do have a good understanding when it comes to matching the fabric to the design style of the dress. This was way off from the beginning. The fabric was a scuba knit from JoAnn (love the fabric, wish they still had it) and the pattern should have been sewn in a stable cotton or linen fabric. This will be sent to the thrift store in hopes that it might work for someone else.