Another Mom make...!
This is the Dottie Angel dress, Simplicity 1080, which was all the rage on the interwebs a few months ago.
The cover versions are a bit country/shabby-chic for my taste, but I could see that the simple lines of the dress would be nice. I love cut-on sleeves and under-bust pleats. After buying the pattern for me back in the States and lugging it across the world, my mom saw the appeal, too, so we decided to make one for her while she was in town.
We had bought this stylized navy and magenta peacock feather print quilting cotton last year when she was in Bangkok, with no particular plans on what to make with it. It seems like the perfect match for this pattern.
To be honest, for such a simple dress, this pattern was kind of a pain to put together. The pattern pieces are not layered/nested, so they take up approximately one million pattern pages. Since we decided to grade from a medium on top to a large at the hips for my mom, I had to cut out separate pattern pieces and layer them myself. Not the end of the world, but it would be easier to work with if the pattern were layered.
Also, the pattern has lots of details and overly-complicated/confusing instructions that we opted not to do. We didn't double top-stitch all the seams or bind the hem and shoulder seam allowances. It seemed like overkill, and with this busy fabric, you couldn't really see the double top-stitching anyway.
We also opted to omit the pockets, for aesthetic reasons. We found them to be firmly on the shabby chic side of things and that's not the look we were going for.
After trying the dress on, we had to raise the armholes by 2.5 inches, as they were really quite low, showing the entire bra band at the underarm... whoa.
The neckline is fairly wide, too, and low in the back. After wearing it out to dinner and having a little bit of a straying neckline, my mom may add bra strap carriers when she gets back home.
In the end, it's a pretty cute and infinitely wearable dress! I've got plans to throw one together for myself out of some batik from my stash. Great casual weekend dress!
