Simplicity 1195

Hello Everyone! This is my very first sponsored blog post and I’m so excited about it! The lovely Lucy from Sew Essential very kindly sponsored a pattern and fabric of my choice and asked me to blog about it. Needless to say I was absolutely chuffed!

I’ve had this dress finished for about a week now but good old storm Doris put a spanner in the works picture wise. I had to resort to taking all the pictures indoors which I’m not fond of doing. Finding a ‘picture wall’ is hard in our wee rented cottage.

The pattern I chose was Simplicity 1195. I chose this pattern because I wanted to challenge myself. Around a year ago I made a ‘going out’ dress and the fit was awful. I only wore it once. So I wanted to see how far I’ve come and test myself with this pattern. I chose view C which consisted of a bodice with princess seams and a skater skirt. I’d say I spent around 2 hours choosing a pattern there was so many to chose from!

Had my daffodils inside away from Doris!

The fabric I chose was a beautiful John Kaldor fabric. I had heard a lot of talk about John Kaldor fabric and thought that I would try it out. I can tell you the hype is real!! Oh it’s a beautiful, luxurious fabric that drapes so so well! I’m in love with the print on the fabric also – it’s fabulous. It was a slippery old eel to work with but I soon got used to it. It’s mostly polyester with the slightest bit of stretch and is a medium weight which feels really nice on. I chose a black fabric as I have a lot of colour in my wardrobe and need some basic neutral colours. However, the print on this fabric makes it so much more than just a black dress. This fabric is also available in red which was very tempting!

Construction was easy. Not a beginner pattern that’s for sure but the instructions were very clear and there were lots of them! I have made 2 or 3 Simplicity patterns at this stage and find that their instructions are much better than the likes of Vogue which can be a bit scarce with instructions. To be honest I was quite surprised at just how easy I found this pattern to sew. The invisible zip went in with out too much of a problem. There are a few lumpy bits near the end but they aren’t even visible in the pictures – test passed 🙂

You can see form the above picture that the dress is quite flattering! This leads onto the fit of the dress. This is something that I haven’t quite mastered just yet. There is a little bit of gaping from the back just above the zip (I’m not sure what that bit is called!) and where it fastens at the top of the neck. I based my pattern size by my waist measurement and cut the whole pattern that one size. This left the side seams just under the arms and the neck very loose. I took an inch off either side seam and tapered it to meet the waist. What I should have done on the pattern pieces was start with the smaller size for the shoulders and neck, then met with the larger waist size. Rookie mistake which I wasn’t happy about.

I made some adjustments to the princess seams and the front fits like a glove. The only place that there is any gaping is at the back. Wearing a cardigan or a jacket solves that problem! Other than that I’m really happy with the fit of the dress and am delighted at how much better it fits than the dress I made a year ago. I used black bias binding for the neck and arm holes which I think is a lovely contrast and gives the dress another dimension. I didn’t have enough to finish the hem with bias binding but I’m still happy 🙂

Over all I really enjoyed sewing this pattern and loved using the fabric kindly sponsored by Sew Essential. I was over the moon to be asked to write a blog post for Lucy and her team and I hope they will be as happy with outcome as I am 🙂

While I was browsing through Sew Essential trying to chose a pattern and fabric I got a bit sidetracked…I’ve been contemplating buying a new sewing machine for a while now but still haven’t taken the plunge. I’ve actually used this particular Janome machine but not for any substantial length of time and I’ve been reading reviews on this Janome machine as well. The two are very different and I’m trying to see which is best for me! Recommendations welcome!

Thanks for reading as always!

Char xxx

This hair is so last week!