An easy (I hope) project

Welcome to the first in a series of short blog posts. July is going to be a very busy month for me - but sadly not with fun stuff like holidays. In fact, the majority of it is going to be pretty stressful. This last week has been busy, too, as I've tried to pre-empt issues which might come up in the next few weeks.

Amid all this chaos I want a nice, non-taxing, project which I can pick up easily when I do have some free time. So, not my pineapple dress. Instead, following on from the success of my peppermint batik dress, I’ve decided to pursue my plan to re-use the bodice pattern and make up Simplicity 3662.

It's more of this!

I'm going to use this cotton poplin, which has been in my stash for a couple of years.

The colours are far brighter, but my camera refuses to capture them properly

Because it is such an obviously directional print, it wouldn't work with a circle skirt. Instead it needs a skirt which is either in panels or a tube. Panels would take a certain amount of work, because while I couldn't pattern-match the motifs I would want to at least align them. And I just don't like gathered skirts, on me at least. This design however, with its deep pleats (similar to the peppermint batik dress), seems like it would work. I am not going for the closed pleat at the bottom, though - for someone who takes quite long strides that looks like a recipe for disaster!

I will make the skirt on the right

View 1, in black, has a tie belt, but view 2 is described as having "corded piping in the waistline seam". This is a technique which I've never used before, so I'm tempted to have a go.

Interesting waist treatment

So far, I have resized the skirt pieces, and tweaked both them and my hybrid Simplicity 3662/Butterick 5748 bodice pieces to make sure that the darts match up with the pleats. So now I'm ready to start cutting out.