Simplicity 2372: New Year, New Dress

Happy New Year!  

The first dress of the year is for Mama R. Well, it is her birthday. A lady needs a new dress for these celebratory occasions, right? I gave her the choice of any fabric from my stash and this is the one that she chose. I adore the colours in this print and I'm thrilled with this choice. It just seems like I've been sewing up a lot of dark coloured garments lately. It is a nice change. I actually picked it out thinking that I would make a skirt for myself, but I'm willing to admit that I have more than enough skirts in my wardrobe and that a new dress for Mom is a much better idea.

The pattern is a go-to-favourite, Simplicity 2372. Mama R adores the neckline and armhole pleats.

The usual changes happened again:  remove the front centre seam, insert a zipper, lengthen the sleeves, shorten the hem, and add pockets. There were several stitches used to complete the dress. I used the straight stitch (also known as the basic stitch) to construct most of the dress including the zipper as well as locking stitch at the start and ending of my seams. The hem was completed with a straight blind hem stitch (also known as an invisible hem) on my machine. Hand-stitches on this dress included the basting (also known as the tack stitch) and the slip stitch to hold down the facing piece.

The fabric is a 100% cotton from Fabricland's home decor department. It was pretreated with a tumble in the washing machine followed by a tumble in the dryer and then a final pressing before I cut it out.

I'm starting off the new year using supplies already found in my stash. I would like to try to do this as much as I can this year. The fabric made it into my collection a year ago, maybe two? I'm not quite sure to be completely honest. The interfacing has been in my stash for a couple of years now. The basting tape was a much appreciated birthday gift. And even the invisible zipper and threads were found in my stash.

The Stats:  

Fabric:  2 metres 

Interfacing:  0.3 metres fusible interfacing

Zipper:  22" invisible zipper

Basting Tape:  1.12 metres 

Pattern:  Simplicity 2372

Time:  I invested about 5.5 hours into the preparation of the fabric and construction of this dress.

Additional Tools & Supplies:  Sewing machine, serger, threads (for the serger, sewing machine and hand-stitching), invisible zipper foot, regular zipper foot, measuring tape, steam iron, ironing board, tailor's ham, scissors, thread clippers, pins, cutting table, and a few stretch breaks.

Happy Sewing!