Thursday, May 12, 2011

Simplicity 3678, Great Comfortable Knit Dress

I have not been a dress person for a few decades but watching terrific sewists around the globe sew up wonderfully flattering dresses is convincing me to reconsider my fashion plan.   This one was easy to sew and I'm pleased with the result.  
Simplicity 3678 has several neckline variations and I liked the crossover View B the most.  I'm not a fan of jumpers since I try to avoid another layer on my body if at all possible.  When I first purchased the pattern I made it up as a knit top and decided then to remove the gathers from the back lower section.  I got several compliments when wearing it but hadn't taken the time to try the dress version.  I sewed a size 14 through the neck and bodice area, with a FBA...mildly tedious to do on those three pleats.  After the bodice area I tapered out to a 16 for the bottom skirt.

I used lightweight knit interfacing on the bodice band since it seemed too flimsy on my short top.  I folded out the gathered section on the bottom back.  I do need extra high hip space but the gathers front and back were too round.  This dress is from a nice medium weight poly rayon lycra from Fabric Mart.  It's super comfy although there is some clingy to my body fluff in the back.  The short top version doesn't do this since it's a nice heavyweight slinky knit.

Speaking of slinky knit, this would be a wonderful slinky knit travel dress that is casual yet can be accessorized.   I've seen versions of this dress in those Travelsmith and other travel clothing catalogs.  I did not do the sleeve gathering in the upper arm area on this version but will definitely add that detail with another one.  Ok, off to catch my flight.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend wherever you are in the world.

7 comments:

  1. Lovely, looks very nice on you and you did a great job!

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  2. What a lovely dress! I'll have to revisit this pattern and use your FBA adjustments. I received my patterns and it looks like we are neighbors. Tiny world, no?
    Angela

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  3. That's very pretty, and looks fantastic on you.

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  4. It took me a while to get into dresses too but now I love earing them, makes getting dressed so easy! Yours looks fantastic so maybe you will catch the bug too!

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  5. I was going to comment on this 2 days ago, but the post disappeared! Silly blogger.

    It really is a nice dress with a flattering style. I, too, have fun eyeing all the dresses people are making, but I've never worn the 3 dresses I've made myself. I think I just need to put more thought into what styles and fabric choices suit me.

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  6. I like to dress nicely when I travel too. It got me a bump to first class one time. Lovely dress, it looks great on you and would be perfect for travel. In fact there was a red dress in a similar style in the the most recent Travelsmith catalog.

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