Pattern review: Simplicity Project Runway 2848

As I’ve already mentioned here I have hoarded this pattern for a long time. Like a really long time. Think years. There was a time when just like people get tempted by fabrics, I would get tempted by patterns. Ooh this dress would look so nice, let me buy this pattern. It’s only a $1. I’ll have the dress ready soon (yeah right!). Fast forward a few years. The dream did come true! I do have a dress made from that pattern and I love how it looks! You can see it in the picture below. No I did not stitch the shirt, that is ready made. Very happy that I could find just the right shirt for it.

The pattern was on the simpler side. Not too may pieces to sew. It has pockets too and there is a side zipper. What I realized is that I could have avoided the zipper (and all t he time it took) because I can basically pullover this dress. The fabric is a linen blend that I bought from a local store - Pacific Fabrics; so it’s a little on the stiffer side. When reading the pattern I felt that such a fabric would be better suited than a regular cotton and I’m glad I went with that. The dress hits about an inch above the knee. Overall quite satisfied with the pattern. Not as easy as the Burda one but still not bad.

Pattern review: Burda Style 6401

Here’s my dress:

The dress came out very much to my liking! Unfortunately I couldn’t get as good a photo of it. It was just what I wanted. The fabric was perfect – light and soft with a really nice print and color. The dress was simple, one-layered and hassle-free. Exactly the things I was looking for.

The fabric I used is Robert Kaufmann’s Millefiore Tomato. It’s slightly lighter than regular quilting weight cotton.

This is the first time I was using a Burda pattern and I’m a fan now! What I liked so much about this pattern company:

1. There is no wastage of paper. They try to optimize every inch of paper.
2. Instructions were so straightforward and intuitive. Most of the times, what I was thinking on how it should be done is how it would be done. With Simplicity and McCall I always notice that they do things in a more complicated fashion.

Starting with my last couple of dresses I’ve been paying more and more attention on doing things the right way no matter how many times I’ve to rip apart the seams. So I read the instructions carefully and do all the due diligence. I think that is also helping. Well also the fact that it is supposed to be an “easy” pattern

I’m also glad that I used my judgement with this dress. With my last one I realized that I didn’t need a zipper because I was able to pullover the dress without the zipper, So with this one, I decided to baste it without zipper and then try it on. Since I was able to pull this over as well, I skipper the zipper. This made it super easy from easy Also, I love pullover dresses so it made me like it all the more! The other thing I did was to use mny sewing machine to stitch the hem rather than doing it by hand. I feel it didn’t make any difference and saved me so much time!

This is not a fitted dress – so if you’re looking for something that fits your form this is not it. This is your dress for those days when you’re looking for something easy to get into, that is comfortable and (with the print I chose) very cheerful!

You can see from my description I’m one happy camper after making this dress