Simplicity New Look Competition

Hi everyone! Long time no see! I haven't had much time for sewing lately as I've been concentrating on getting myself fit and healthy, but I saw this competition mentioned in the latest Love Sewing magazine and just knew I had to enter! Unfortunately I only saw it on the 19th of May, and the competition ends on the 31st so I knew I had to get my tail in gear to get it done!


There were three categories for the competition - Dressmaking, Vintage, and Newcomer. Each category had a different pattern, and as I picked the Dressmaker challenge, I received a New Look 6145 shift dress pattern on the 24th May and got to work straight away!

I had some gorgeous ticking fabric in my stash that my lovely friend Emma gave me, and I knew it would be perfect! 

I decided to play with the pattern a little, so I chose to make view E without the collar, and thought it would be fun to quarter the front of the pattern, cut the ticking on the bias, and make a diamond shape pattern! (I know, with 5 days to get it done and the small one on half term holidays from school - I *might* be a little crazy!)

So I traced, and cut, and pinned like crazy...and this was the front - I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief, I can tell you ha ha!

On the back I decided to quarter the pattern to continue the waistline round, but I didn't do the same pattern with the fabric, deciding instead to just chevron it down the centre back. 

Now came the easy part - sewing it together!

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, especially as it was such a fast turnaround, and my first attempt at pattern matching stripes! Eek!

I think I'll be making quite a few more of these, although perhaps next time I'll just use a plain fabric! Ha ha!

I'm just glad I managed to get it finished today in time to enter it!

Thanks for looking

Lisa x