Simple Day Dress: Remake of Vogue 8944

I revisited Vogue 8944 this week. I made a colour block dress from it last time. Despite all the fitting issues, I like a the horizontal seam on the bodice so much that I decided to give this pattern another go. I used a different knit fabric this time. I was very surprised with the fabric. It gives the dress a flaring silhouette.

Here's how it turned out, with a red belt and my favourite red shoes.

The fabric
I am not sure what the fabric is called. It seems to have two layers of knits. The right side has a stripe-like pattern and the wrong side is just black. It also stretches a little bit.

Sizing
Since this is the second time I made the pattern, I am more familiar with the fitting. I cut it as size 6 and graded to size 8 at waist.

Modifications
I made a few changes to the pattern. I removed the back darts and the centre back zip. Both back bodice and back skirt were cut on the fold. Initially I wanted to replace the centre back zip with side seam zip. After I made all the effort to sew in the side seam zip, I realised I could pull over the dress without the zip open. Since the zip was really uncomfortable, I decided to unpick the zip and sew up the side seam!! Grrr! I hate unpicking..

All the effort gone to waste.. I had to unpick the zip

I removed the back darts and the centre back seam and cut the back pieces on the fold.

Removing the back darts...

Seamless back

I shortened the sleeves to almost a cap sleeve length. Initially I planned to make the sleeveless version, so I took away 1cm at the centre back to achieve a better fitting. This actually caused a big problem when I later decided to add short sleeves. My sleeves are now being pulled towards the back as you can see in the below photos. It really does not look good!

The wrinkles at the back of my arms 

The stripes are slanted towards the back, suggest unbalanced fitting.

Sleeve fitting is definitely one area I need to study. I find it extremely difficult and there are not many resources talking about sleeves. Can anyone help me out here?

The hem and neckline edges
I have some exciting news. I recently had a new addition to my sewing family - Janome CoverPro 1000CP.

Yay.. new member to my sewing family

I would like to do a full review on the machine when I have more of a chance to play with it. So far I have only used it on this dress to do the neckline edges and the hem. There are some problems with the machine, e.g. it skips stitches when going through a few layers as shown below in the photo.

Skipped stitches :(

Such professional result!

For the hem, because it's on a curve and the fold will have some gather, I used a fusible tape to "glue" the hem before running it under the cover stitch machine.

Applying fusible hemming tape

Another thing I found after I finished the dress is, I should have matched the black and white stripes at the front bodice seams. Now two white stripes are sewn together and it looks unpleasant.

not quite happy with the front bodice seam... 

Material list:

Knits: 1.5 m x $4 = $6

Overall, I like how the dress turned out and the fitting issue on the sleeves may not be noticed by people when I wear it. The dress is very comfortable to wear and looks quite stylish with a thin belt and a pair of pumps. Plus, it's very easy to make, especially if you have a serger (overlocker) or cover stitch machine. 

Misc

It's been almost a month since my last post. I said I was working on the By Hand London Elisalex dress on my post more than a month ago, but now I still have not posted anything about it... Well I DID work on it but encountered some issues with the fitting and I was so frustrated that I just put it aside.

Anyway, we seamstress also need to take some time off and enjoy life! As I am doing this blog post, I am actually in the beautiful Tasmania!! For those who ever think about coming down under, you must come to Tasmania! I am a big bush walk fan and Tas has some of the best walking tracks in Australia. 

Yesterday we went to Wineglass Bay, and today we made the walk in the famous Cradle Mountain. After the walk in the Wineglass Bay, we encountered some friendly Wallabies at the car park.