Tartan dress from Simplicity

This dress, I had already decided was not worthy of me bothering to blog about due to the terribly unmatched fabic. Being tartan as well that makes it really bad.

But then this blog post arrived in my inbox from Did You Make That

Well what could I do but blog this dress which actually I have worn 3 times including once to work and its a great comfortable dress which I really like so here is my imperfectly matched tartan dress.


I simply did not have enough fabric for pattern matching when I made this. This was a remnant that was actually very badly cut so although it was sold as 2m infact it was not really 2m because both ends had been cut at a diagonal leaving a piece about 1.4m that was useable as a straight bit of fabric and two bits at eaither end.

Well I never knew what I was going to make from this so it did not matter. Then when I did my planning post after New Year I decided I really want to make this dress again but not so goth/ cosplay.

You can see the original dress I made here:
http://brackencrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/85-simplicity-1772-dress.html


Well I was thinking of "sportsweary" when I wrote that post but then I though of this tartan. I knew could not match the fabric but went ahead anyway.




I decided if I cut this on the cross which makes the tartan look more interesting, it also meant I could use my weird triangle end bits for the sleeves and I could get the whole dress out of it plus some flared sleeve cuffs which I love. I used the Simplicity pattern but instead of the cut out back I put this piece on a fold and cut as one with no lace cut outs. I cut the front on the fold as per original pattern but shorter. The sleeevs and circle cuffs came from the badly cut ends. I have hardly any left but am considering trying to mke some matching knichers - thats for later tho! The flared sleeve cuffs are self drafted.

Its shorter than the shorter view on the original and still has a very slight high low hem but only slight. I added stretch lace to all edges and overlocked everything except the lace which for stretchiness is twin needle stitched.

I made this over a couple of evenings and as already explained never intended to add this to the blog due to the totally imperfect matching of the tartan. Thanks Did You Make That for making me appreciate that actually it does not matter at all. This is good enough for me to enjoy wearing to work so what the hell, this is a good, wearable dress which I managed to squeeze from hardly any fabric. I am going to enjoy it and forget about the unmatched fabric. I love this world of bloggers. It makes me feel I am not the only imperfect sewist out there after all!

It was really cold when these photos were taken and I could almost imagine I was up in the Highlands wearing my tartan dress.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave comments

Bracken