Simplicity 2320 - Project Runway Dress size 4

Hi!

  I just completed Simplicity 2320 - the capped sleeve dress version which is the one on the upper right hand corner.

  In general, the dress came together easily and quickly. The only part that gave me a bit of trouble was inserting the yoke (pattern piece 1). In step 4, the directions say to pin the front yoke (right sides together) to the dress front (pattern piece 2) and stitch. Also, to make sure that you pivot your stitching at the small dots. I had a hard time just pinning the yoke to the front. What worked better for me was to pin one side at a time and stitch. I stitched in a U shaped fashion but worked one seam line at a time. I still had some issues with a little bit of puckering because my stitching lines were not straight in one corner.

However, I was able to undo the corner and fix it. I'd like to make this dress again but next time I will pin and stitch the base of the yoke before I start attaching the sides of the yoke. I think it might work out easier that way.

Once, I had stitched the yoke the way I wanted it, I went ahead and stitch the should seams as the directions suggest.  The fabric is from JoAnn's and I've had it a while. I wouldn't of picked this big and bold of a print for this dress buy Lil' AC was adamant that we use this fabric. After looking at the dress for a while, I thought I should add some sort of trim. I had some rickrack that would liven up the dress a bit. I had to open up the seams to slide in the rickrack. So, note to yourself, if you're going to add trim around the yoke, don't sew the shoulder seams first!

Pin rickrack in place.

Since the fabric was a bit bold, I wanted to make sure the sleeves were the same. So, I did what some refer to as "fussy cuts". I took the pattern piece and centered it on a flower and cut out only ONE layer. I then found the repeat pattern on the fabric and placed the 1st sleeve I cut out on the repeat to make sure they matched before I cut out the 2nd sleeve. Hope that makes sense.

I was happy to leave the dress with the just the rickrack accent. However, Lil' AC wanted that bow! So, we went from this:

To this w/the bow in the center:



The instructions call for a 12" zipper but I didn't have one on hand. Instead, I used a 9" invisible zipper. I temporarily tacked the back seem where the shorter zipper would end to see if Lil AC could get in and out of the dress. There was plenty of room to get the dress on and off with the shorter zipper.

I do recommend this pattern and would say the only "tricky" part was putting in that front yoke. I do like the little cap sleeves and the construction of them were new to me but they went in easy enough.

Credo,
Lisa