Sewing for me: Simplicity 2215

Pattern: Simplicity 2215, Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity, View A

Fabric: Nani IRO Wata, Woodblock POCHO in mustard, off-white cotton voile for bodice lining

Notions: interfacing, invisible zipper, bias tape, four 7/8" covered buttons, coordinating thread

Size: 6 

I did it! My first completed Make a Garment a Month challenge for the month of May! And posted before the end of this lovely month too.

I think the first thing to say about this dress is that I love it. The fact that my husband thinks it's stunning makes me love it even more! I love the dots and the mustard yellow...for me it just says 'cheerful' or in the case of this month's theme, 'merry'. I'm very happy with the overall fit, the covered buttons, the shape of the dress, the dot placement, the invisible zipper, and on top of all that, it's really comfortable to wear!

So, now to the actual making of this polka dot dream. If I had followed the pattern's instructions based on my bust measurement, I would have made a size 10 but when I looked at the finished garment measurements, it was clear that there was going to be far more ease than I like to have. I chose to make size 6 and made a muslin just to be sure. Everything seemed to be spot on except that I was going to have to reduce the waist a little. I also ended up deepening some pleats to match the bodice better.

I spent quite a bit of time looking at the fabric, figuring out how I wanted to cut the fabric to get a nice effect with the dots. I chose to go with the sections with fewer more randomly spaced dots for the bodice pieces. I cut the front bodice pieces flat instead of with the fabric folded to have better control over the dots. For the two skirt pieces, I chose to use the multi-size dot sections. I think the effect is pretty fun.

My 'real' bodice came together in a jiffy but then we had a rough week and a half of colds, fevers, and just lying low to recuperate...so that meant little sewing. But once I got back to my machine, it took about an evening and a half to finish. This was also the first time I have ever put in an invisible zipper and it is to my astonishment, invisible! Hurrah! New skill! As I had said in my MAGM May plans post, I did not put pockets in.

I bound all my exposed raw edges and used this tutorial from Paunnet's to enclose the waist seam beautifully with some bias tape. I hand sewed the top of the bias tape down so it would not show on the right side.The way the pattern is built, the bodice lining does not enclose the joined skirt and bodice seam and since this fabric starts to fray just by looking at it, I knew drastic measures were in order! Oddly enough, (my husband thought it was quite weird,) I find the inside of this dress to be almost as pretty as the right side. I almost wish it was completely reversible!

I debated for a while about the buttons and after a fruitless trip to my favorite shop for buttons, I decided to make four 7/8" covered buttons. That way, they would match the fabric perfectly and would be there without detracting from the dots. I'm pretty happy about my choice and I'm so glad that my machine was cooperative for the buttonholes. They came out really well.

Knowing that it can be a bit chilly here, I decided to knit myself a cardigan to go with the dress. I had envisioned this ensemble pretty early on and it worked beautifully into my yarn de-stashing, using up the three skeins of off-white Cascade Ultra-Pima I had. I love how the buttons bring back the color of the dress and the shape of the polka dots. You can see a dedicated blog post to the cardigan here.

I'm so thrilled with this dress and I adored working with this fabric. It was soft and almost squishy and it is so agreeable to wear. I'm hoping to make this dress again and the only change I think I might contemplate would be increasing coverage around the back shoulder area. I'm looking forward to wearing this for my baby boy's birthday party and I can't wait to make plans for the right-around-the-corner June challenge.