I now present you V1257...

Since last summer I have been on a dress kick. I know it's partly due to Carolyn over at Diary of a Sewing Fanatic because she really knows how to work a dress and I can't let her out do me! Also Shelia at Sheliaz-CTK has really been rocking and flaunting her wrap dresses and I am sick jealous of them both. I've known for most of my sewing life that I don't have a body that works with wrap dresses. Imagine wrapping a piece of fabric around an hourglass. I need too much fabric around my hips. In my opinion. Anyway, I digress.

Carolyn wrote a post about sewing blogs and the different ways blogger present their projects. Some go into a lot of detail while others are simply "see what I made." I think I'm somewhere inbetween. Sometimes I'm very detail, other times not so much. Carolyn does wonderful interpretations of designer wear and I love seeing what she does. Frankly I'm probably too lazy to draft my patterns using a TNT.  I don't directly follow designers collections. If it's not in the catalogs at JoAnns, I probably don't see it. My main goal in my sewing is fit. I want my clothes to fit well--DD cups are not easy to fit! I am especially proud of myself when I am able to accomplish a fantastic fit out of a Big 4 pattern. With that said...

I love this dress. When I decided on this fabric I was hoping I didn't look like Barney--the dinosaur, not Rubble! I am extremely happy I made a muslin because the sleeves on this dress are so small, they would have been tight on a broomstick!

I started my alterations with my usual wide back adjustment. Sometimes on knits I skip this alteration but after reading the reviews on Patternreview, I decided to be extra cautious.

Usually if I make this adjustment I have to continue it onto the connecting piece. I figured my fabric had enough stretch to be able to accomodate the skirt portion of the pattern.

Without even measuring the pattern I made my usual FBA. That was sort of a mistake because I didn't take into consideration I was using a knit and the FBA was a little to generous.

I'd rather have too much room than not enough.

The next thing to tackle was the sleeve. When I say it was small believe me...it was small.

This picture shows the altered sleeve piece. Because I made the top of the sleeve wider, I figured I had to make an alteration to accomodate it.

I'm not sure I would have accurately made this alteration if not for my Duct tape dressform. I pinned the pattern to it and was able to determine exactly how much tissue I needed to add to accomodate the altered sleeve.

Pattern Description:

Fitted dress has front bodice extending into sleeves, armhole seam on back bodice, straight skirt with front pleats gathered into band to form drape effect, back darts.
Pattern Sizing:
6-20 I sewed the size 20
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?
I think it does other than I used a printed fabric.

Were the instructions easy to follow?
Yes
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I liked that it looks like a wrap dress. I also like the super deep V that doesn't show any cleavage! The things I didn't like about it were in the construction. As several sewers on Patternreview suggested, I used interfacing instead of the double fold bias tape to reduce of the bulk at the rathered band. Even without the bias tape, that area of the dress is about 1/2" thick!

 Also the elastic that is on the front neckline pieces gave me fits. I didn't get a photo of it but on the right side of the bodice I had to reinsert the elastic five times before I was satisfied with the way it looked. Because of my over generous FBA I had to sew the front waist line about 3/4" deeper.
Fabric Used:
A knit from the 1/2 off Clearance at JoAnns
Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
See above
Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
I'd absolutely sew it again and would highly recommend it to others.
Conclusion:
Put this one on your list. Parting shot...