Once again I am incredibly behind with blogging.  I blame Instagram.  It’s easy to find an excuse isn’t it – but if I didn’t blog I wouldn’t be able to search information about prior projects – and I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the sewing blogging conversation!  So I figure better late than never.

Thankfully photos are date-stamped.  I made Lekala 5957 on April 18th.  The pattern is described as “Classical Dress”.  The fashion illustration shows a fitted princess seamed dress, above the knee, with three quarter sleeves.

Interestingly, this is how it looked on me.

Not above the knee, not three quarter sleeves, not fitted. I have no idea what happened. Lekala are drafted to measure. There could have been a printing problem – I have to admit that I hardly ever measure the box to check that things are printing out to the correct size, although I do take special care to ensure that I tick all the printing boxes to print at 100% – but this dress turned out WAY larger than expected.

The photos give it a bit of a retro shift appearance, but it really did feel like a too big sheath dress. So I took it in. I took it in around the armscye and the side seams. And took it up. And shortened the sleeves. I didn’t adjust the princess seams, but it would have been a good idea if I had. I really should have just unpicked the whole thing and recut it smaller. Anyway, this is what I ended up with – much more like the fashion illustration.

The fit is much better overall.

The fabric is a stretch cotton sateen from deep, deep stash. I think that once upon a time it came from Spotlight.

There is a lapped centre back zip, and the neckline is finished with bias binding used as a facing. Construction was very straightforward, and much of it on the overlocker. There is a centre back vent, and overall it is, as Lekala say, a classical dress. And that may be it’s problem, as far as I am concerned. I wore it once, to a work committee meeting, and by the end of the day the sateen was extremely creased and crumpled. I suppose that is to be expected in an unlined dress, but I really wasn’t happy with the creases. And despite it being a lovely fabric, and looking okay in the photos, it’s really not my style. It went out in the wardrobe purge. Bye bye dress – but I’m glad that I gave you a try.