My latest make for https://www.simplesewpatterns.com is the Raglan Dress. This dress was themed for the DressMakers Ball in Leicester, which I couldn’t go to but I know I will get loads of wear out of this dress, especially at Christmas!
This dress can be made in jersey or woven and I chose woven, as I decide I wanted to make a statement with the sleeves. I have this amazing fabric in my stash from http://www.craftysewer.com Its silk, cut into small pieces and stitched in rows on to the base fabric. I love it but was sturuggling to find the right pattern for it but this one was perfect. Here the link to it on Simple Sew Patterns Website https://www.simplesewpatterns.com/products/the-raglan-dress
I bought the black crepe from https://www.fabricsgalore.co.uk
I love the zero waste challenge when cutting out so had a few goes at positioning the pattern peices

Next up was to mark the darts, first I pinned, then used chalk pen to drawn them on the fabric before I tacked them.
Drawing the darts, they do look a lot wonkier than they actually were in this photo!
Here I have tacked the darts – sorry for the poor photo, black is really hard to photograph!!

Bust and front of dress darts tacked.
Cutting the sleeves out was a slow process as the silk chiffon was not that easy to work with as it was really mobile. I found it easier when I used my weights and silk pins (longer and thinner than normal ones)
I then pinned the sleeves together…and I can’t wait to see what it looks like so ….
Had to pin it on my dummy Flossie to have a sneak peek, does anyone else do that?
Only stitched at the shoulders



So back off Flossie and now time to cut the facing for the neck. I used a light weight interfacing and joined the 2 parts to make a circle.

Next I pinned the sides from hem to cuff and pinned the facing around the neck (leave the facing off if you are using jersey material)

Back on to Flossie and I am really happy with how its looking…in need of a good press now

I left the fabric to drop over night before I pinned the hem.

Here she is, rather hard to photograph, so used my selfie stick for the first time!

I took out the darts on the front and back as the fabric hung better that way and I think it needs to be taken in a bit, but am really happy with it.