my dress: New Look 6616 in an Atelier Brunette viscose from D&H Fabrics Co.

Penny’s tank: Megan Nielsen Mini Eucalypt, altered.

Penny’s pants: older H&M

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I am on a roll making some freaking good dresses. This is another dream one! It has two of my favorite things - high square neck and ties. And THIS FABRIC. OMG this fabric. I’m so in love. It is a lightweight viscose and is a bit sheer. I lined the top, bit not the bottom because I didn’t want to add too much weight to the dress. But it’s not an issue because I have a nice collection of slip skirts that I can wear underneath. The pattern did need some adjustments. First of all, the straps were too long. I had to take those up by about 3/4”. And the bust, geez. There is no bust darts because it is just cinched with the sash ties, so that seemed perfect for me. But omg it was still so big in the bust and underarms. I had to take it in by more than 1 1/4” at each underarm, graded down to the waist. Luckily it worked it out. The last thing - not the biggest fan of the construction - specifically the zipper/bias binding. Doing the binding first and leaving the zipper until the very end left the top edge of the zipper unfinished and feeling a bit messy. I would suggest leaving the binding unfinished at the center back, sewing in the zipper, and then finishing the binding over the zipper for a cleaner finish.

For Penny’s, I didn’t have a lot of fabric left to play with, so I made her a quick tank using the mini Eucalypt. I wanted a higher, crew-neck style blouse though, so I raised the neckline quite a bit and added a slit in the back with a hook and eye. I also finished the edges with contrasting bias binding, instead of bias facing, using leftover binding from my Calvin wrap dress.