New Look 6936 Knit dress with kimono sleeve

I am not used to taking photos inside! Still rainy and buggy outside, I miss the gazebo and sunshine and breezes. hmmm. OK, end of complaint list…

I love this dress! It is one of the patterns for knits that I bought before I brushed up on my knit sewing skills. And I bought the fabric at the same time  – good motivation!

And please note that I have to make things as hard as possible for myself. Another stripe! Matching stripes on a knit is slippery business…at least this is a big pattern.

 

I sewed view A in size 14, my usual size. The fit is great, all the way down to the hem. However – I’m 5’7″ and only took up about a 3/4″ hem, others might want to cut a little extra length…

 

 

The fabric is an Irat tye [?] dye cotton jersey knit from Girl Charlee, a great online shop for casual knits. It’s midweight and is well saturated with the dyes. With minimal 1-way stretch (15%), it was very manageable on both the cutting and sewing table. Thank goodness!

If you are just getting into cotton jersey knits, a caution: order generously and launder first! shrinkage loss was about 16% on this one. To allow for pattern matching and shrinkage, I ordered an extra 3/4 yard and used it all.

 

 

 

Just one sewing change on this one 🙂  The directions are to make a 5/8″ narrow hem in the front and back neckline edges. Aaaghh. Clearly the folks who write those directions have never tried to do a narrow hem in the curve of a back neckline.

 

 I drafted a 3″ wide back neckline facing and used a narrow hem on the front neckline edges only.

 

 

A simple change that makes a big difference in the finish of the dress.

 

 

 

Couple more pics – pretty sleeves…

 

 

Great little number! Ciao! Coco