New Look 6144

I can't believe I have been sewing so much!!!   Three dresses in three weeks.  It must be a record for me.  The weather in Melbourne has been so hot for the last few months and I just didn't have many dresses to wear to work.  There is only one thing bigger than my fabric stash and that is my pattern stash! I cannot believe how many patterns I have bought over the years and I never make most of them up.  Such a waste of money, as here in Australia sewing patterns are quite expensive.  It would be frightening to add the cost of them up :-/

Again I was looking for a dress that was easy to whip up for work but something that could also be worn with flatter more casual shoes when I was not working.   I really liked the style of New Look 6144 but had never made anything from a New Look pattern before as most of the time their sizing stops at size 16.  Why I had this pattern in my pattern stash is anyone's guess.   I liked the pleated detail on the front of the dress but was a bit worried it would make me look a bit 'booby'. This pattern is one of the few New Look patterns that do go up to a size 18 so I thought it wouldn't be too difficult to adjust it over the hips.  It was easy to fit this dress on myself also which is something I often struggle to do. I did worry that with just the two darts in the front and back  it may be hard to achieve a good fit but in the end it worked out OK.  I am pretty happy with the way this dress turned out.  I normally would wear something with this to cover my arms but the other day it was just so hot here I threw caution to the wind and just went out and bared my flabby arms. Very brave of me I think. 

I purchased this fabric from Spotlight.  It is cotton with a bit of stretch in which makes it really comfortable to wear.  This fabric was only $12 per meter so I managed to make this dress for the grand sum of $24 as I had the pattern and the zip already.