Simplicity 3835 Built by Wendy Finished



I made this dress in a Kaffe Fassett cotton, Clouds, in Charcoal colourway. Kaffe Fassett cotton is crisp and has a lot of body. It's so different to the Liberty Tana Lawn, which has a much higher thread count and is almost like silk. The Kaffe Fasset doesn't have the "rustling" quality that Tana Lawn has, but I like it. It seems it will be strong and can be treated quite robustly.

This was an easy dress to make, except for the gathers around the neck band, which drove me round the twist as no matter how I tried, I just couldn't seem to get them completely even. I used masses of pins at right angles to the seamline, and really tried hard. Mind you, Miranda was on the TV, so I was fighting a bit of a battle there. Miranda is the funniest thing on TV and cannot be competed with. Not that I see much TV. Mary Portas, Dragons Den and Miranda (and Top Gear, if I'm telling the truth) are the only things I watch, unless there happens to be a good pop-science prog on (I have a weakness for anything that merely whispers "quantum theory" or "nature of reality" or "uncertainty principle" or "Schrodinger's Cat". I could go on). Oooh, but I did manage to see Tom Ford's A Single Man recently, having had the DVD for ages. Beautiful...absorbing.

But I've gone off-topic.

So, the gathers around the neckline aren't as absolutely mathematically even as I would like (but I am a person who has to have all my shopping up the right way, even in the trolley, on the conveyor belt, in the shopping bags, etc) and the gathers will probably irritate me for ever, but I do like this dress.

The sleeves would have been a tad tight where the tie attaches to the cuff but, as others had mentioned it, I was prepared and took a little off the seam allowance.

Others have also said this dress comes up very short. Being a mere 5ft 2 I thought it wouldn't be an issue for me. I was wrong. I could not wear this dress if there was a slim chance of raising my arms above shoulder level. Knickers would be on show. Very undignified.

If I made this dress again, I would probably spend a whole day trying to get the gathers even. And I would make it a couple of inches longer, just for the sake of common decency.