I am pretty sure I used to come up with amusing titles for these posts. Or at least tried to. Oh, well, this is descriptive I guess.

I finally managed to get some photos of the black dress I mentioned in a previous post, where I showed you the skirt I had made with the skirt part of this pattern.The skirt is more full in the dress than as a skirt because it’s sitting higher up. I did add fabric on to the waist because I’m long waisted, but not as much as I am always tempted to do, so it sits much higher than I wear my skirts. Feels kind of weird to me but it looks good.

It’s from Ottobre Women 5/2011, and it’s the plain version of the pattern. The pattern comes with a couple of variations but I just sewed it straight up, with some variations. The pattern actually doesn’t go up big enough for me, so I sort of fudged it and added some width to the pattern pieces. Not the right way to do it, but it worked. Mostly. My notes say that I added a centimetre to each side seam, and two centimetres to the centre front seam, so six cm all up.

Bonus dorky hat edition. Those shoes and socks are my favourite matches-but-not-really combo. And the front yard weeds are out of control! At least it has tiny peaches in it.

To get the sleeves to fit the new armscye I added a centimetre to each edge, and then tapered it out to 3cm to fit my bingo wings in, since the first sleeves I cut were way too tight. Also, when I first set the sleeves in they were SO POOFY. I did a very dodgy mod and took some of the curve off, but I’m wearing it now and looking at my arms I can see quite a lot of poof still. It’s ok – I quite like it when my arms are down although when I move I’ve got a lot of extra fabric – but in future I’ll be following Jessica’s mod and taking the ease out of all my sleeve caps. It just makes me mad, so get rid of it!

Because I just added to the centre seam the neckline but it was way too wide, and too low as well, so I made some thick bias binding and used that to finish it off. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. Because it was still gapey, I bunged in a couple of dodgy darts. I don’t know if you can see them.

It works ok. Another time I might make the bust darts deeper instead but I had already sewn it all up and spent hours fussing over it, so this works well enough. I think what I really need to do is leave the pattern the size it is and do an FBA. It fits me well in the bust, but I can see it pulling in these photos so it could probably do with better shaping.

I could stand to lose some fabric out the back, so I think I can get away with the smaller size.

I left out the zip because the fabric is stretchy and it doesn’t need it – I might even be able to get away with doing this in a non-stretch.

I could have done with a swayback adjustment, too.

This fabric attract lint like WOAH.

I will definitely sew this pattern again, with those adjustments, since I like the line of it and it would be easy to modify to make different looks. It fits well without being tight anywhere, which was my aim. I can’t speak for the pattern instructions since I didn’t have them. I’m planning to buy this magazine as a back issue because I like it but I made this from a tracing from Su’s magazine. But I mean, there’s not that much too it. You just sew it together in the usual order, whatever that is for you.

I didn’t line it at all because the fabric is thick enough. The skirt sticks to my bikeshorts a bit but it’s not too bad.

Fabric: Three metres or so of some mystery cotton stretch from the stash
Pattern: Ottobre 5/2011
Notions: None!

And the insides?  Overlocked the seams together after baste fitting.
Time to complete: 6 hours? 8? With lots of faffing around in between.
First worn: To work last week
Wear again? Yep! It’s not perfect but it’s a nice simple black dress that’s comfy and neat, so it’s going to go in the standard work rotation.
Total price: How long does fabric have to be in your stash before it’s free? I doubt I would have paid more than $10 a metre for fabric at the time that I bought it, so let’s say $30 all up.

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