New Look 6095 in Horizontal Stripes

In my last post I talked about being inspired to make a horizontal striped dress for spring.  I finally got around to putting the finishing touches on it:

As I mentioned before, I used New Look 6095, a simple shift dress designed for woven fabrics.  I made view A, pictured in the model photo.

The finished dress is okay.  There are some issues, some of which may have stemmed from using a pattern for wovens with a very light weight knit fabric.  I used a black and red polyester/rayon striped knit from Hancock Fabrics

I cut a 14 through the shoulders and a 16 from the bust down, which is my standard size(s.)  I probably could have gone a size smaller on top since I used a knit, but I wanted the dress to be loose and easy, not too body conscious.

I made a 1/2" FBA by adding a 1/2" strip to the tissue right above the darts.  The pattern tissue looked fine, but the darts are too low on the actual dress.  Probably due in part to the weight of the dress pulling them down.  I avoided the diagonal drag lines, but the low hanging darts bother me.  Of course none of my non-sewing friends or co-workers will ever notice, so I'm going to ignore them.  Or at least try to.

There is a center back seam and 2 vertical darts in the back of this dress.  Check out my stripe matching!

When I first got the side seams basted and tried the dress on, the sleeves looked awful- way too wide and floppy, almost like flutter sleeves.  You could also see way too much "underarm cleavage." Ugh!  It could be partly due to the fact that I should have gone down a size in the knit fabric, but if you look at the envelope photo carefully, the sleeves on the model look a little too wide and flappy, too.  I'm going to chalk it up to a combination of user error and bad drafting.

I was able to somewhat fix the sleeves by taking the dress in about an inch under the arms, from the sleeve edge tapering to nothing at the bust dart.  That took some of the flap out of the sleeves, and gave me more coverage at the armpit.  The bust and chest circumference is still good, which further reinforces the idea that I should have cut a smaller size.

Of course the sleeves still aren't great.  If I made this dress again, I'd use a different sleeve altogether.  I'd also move the bust dart up about 3/4"

I pretty much got what I wanted:  a simple, striped dress to wear on warm days.  I can dress it up with a belt and heels, or wear it loose with sandals.  I'm not 100% pleased with the sleeves, but they are okay. The dress is comfortable and will be great for the hot days ahead.

Now that this project is finished, I can move on to my next project, the little wrap front blouse from the April issue of Burda Style.  How is your spring sewing going?