Thursday 15 September 2011

On the bandwagon - Simplicity 2443

It has been too cold to wear my new dress, but I couldn't wait any longer to blog it.


I loved this pattern as soon as I saw it.  I put in a special request to a lovely American lady on Etsy and got my hot little hands on a copy as soon as it was released.  Then it sat in my pattern stash patiently waiting to be used.  My favourite part of the dress is the back - love the racer back style.  I wasn't sure about adding the pockets, I was worried they'd create a lot of bulk, but they're great and I don't think they make any difference to the silhouette. 


Basically I made the dress as per the instructions. A number of people have mentioned that they needed to shorten the shoulder straps, but it wasn't something I needed to do. I added 2 inches to the bodice and left out the zipper and the interfacing on the waistband. I found that clipping the corners so that they fanned out made it a lot easier to attach the straps on the curved sections, it wasn't difficult, you just need to be careful. One thing I wanted to mention - the neckbands specify a 3/8 seam allowance everywhere except the should and side seams, so I assume you are supposed to use 5/8 for those seams. I used 3/8 for the shoulders and 5/8 for the side seams and the bands fit the top section perfectly.


I've already got the jacket cut out and hopefully I like it because I've bought fabric to make a second. 

Because I still had the navy thread in my overlocker I whipped up another version of Kwik Sew 3740 in a beautiful merino jersey from Tessuti.

3 comments:

Sharon said...

Great dress and how about layering it with one of your cute jackets, that will work. 3740 is such a quick top to make and that merino jersey looks gorgeous.

toy said...

I love the back of this dress, can't wait to see the complete look with jacket

Gabrielle said...

That dress looks VERY interesting - can't wait to see it on. It also looks so well made!