Finally, I posting about the fourth garment in my Green Wardrobe Capsule. It's been three weeks since the last post. My goal was to post a "Notes on a Pattern" next. But because I was "distracted" by so many other things, I never got a chance to post it. So today I decided to go ahead and post a complete pattern review of NL6594 instead.
This dress took more time than I expected. My adjustments were a little off. Not making a muslin before hand caused a little set back. I ended up making the bodice twice. Thank God I had enough leftover fabric to do so.
Anyway, this fourth garment completes the first segment of my Green Wardrobe Capsule. Here is the review.
The pattern description is so unbelievably vague. My description - Dresses with fitted bodice, front midriff, and slightly flared skirt; side zipper. The dress comes with multiple length and sleeve variations. It is available in sizes 8 to 20. I made view C with shorten skirt and 16 with modifications.
I used a beautiful kelly green tencel twill from Mood. The fabric is super smooth and easy to work with. It's also very fluid and light on the body.
My dress does look like the dress on the envelope. But I expected it to be a little more flared. As usual, I did make a few changes for fit and construction. Those changes didn't change the overall silhouette of the dress.
First, I made several fit adjustments to the tissue pattern. Those changes include:
- FBA, little tuck along the neckline for a better fit along the bust area.
- Swayback
- Prominent shoulder blades, which produced a little dart in the shoulder seam
- Length of skirt between view B and view C
- No darts in the back skirt
After making the changes, I really needed to make a muslin. Because there were areas where I needed to do a little more tweaking. These changes weren't identified until after I almost completed the bodice. You can image I didn't want to pluck all of those seam apart. I decided to cut a whole new bodice, which in my mind took less time to do then taking the first one apart.
Last thought on that: Make a muslin.
Construction changes:
- Instead of tacking down the facing to the dress, I machine stitched in the ditch at the front gathered bodice and along the shoulder darts.
- For the hem, I just serged the raw edges of the sleeves and hem, turned and stitched.
The instructions provided with the pattern easy, simple and typical. Nothing confusing in them.
There are a few things that I like about the style of this pattern:
- The design and style of the front bodice. This is a style that I'm fond of. Partly, because of my body type, inverted triangle. I think a more fitted "V" bodice looks best on me. Sometimes I over compensate, which was the case of the initial bodice. I think I almost got it right.
- I also like the a-line skirt. But it doesn't exactly work for me in this dress. I think a fuller skirt would look much better.
I don't think I really have any serious dislikes. There is one thing I don't like; and that is, side zippers. I prefer back or front closures. One of my goals with making this dress was to fit a likeable bodice that I can interchange with other skirt designs. This one I'll make again.
A nice little dress that I recommend to others. It is not a difficult dress to make I'd rate it average. My dress is good. But I will tweak the bodice just a little more. Then I make it again with a fuller skirt.
This completes my review of my fourth garment of my Green Wardrobe Capsule. I wanted to make one more dress for the summer season. But, Fall is upon us. So, I will start a new capsule: Blues and Reds. More on that later.
Happy Sewing!
C
