Sewaholic 1202 Cambie Dress

I haven't been massively inspired by the Big 4 pattern releases lately, but still needed a pattern fix.  After hearing so many good things I ordered a few patterns from both Style Arc and Sewaholic and now I have a few new things in the works.

First up the Sewaholic Cambie dress.  I am going to a hen party where the dress code is black cocktail which should be simple enough to follow, but I just wasn't inspired by anything in my wardrobe and decided a few days before the event that I needed to make something new, as you do.

I popped to a local fabric store and found this lacy fabric and when I got home my Sewaholic order was waiting for me in the mailbox - it was a sign!  I could easily have spent 2 days I didn't have mulling over which pattern to make so this was a good thing.

This pattern has been extensively reviewed and there are some great tutorials on the Sewaholic blog, but here are brief details of the changes I made - or will make next time.

The size charts put me between an 8 & 10 and since this brand is new to me I went with the 10 and used the lining as a muslin to roughly check the fit.  I also copied Sunny Gal  and changed the order of construction so that I could sew the side seams last and tweak the fit.  I ended up taking the bodice in and also shortening the sleeves at both the shoulder and bodice seams - I think next time I will start with the size 8 and shorten the sleeves and bodice a bit (fortunately I traced off the bodice pieces).

One thing to watch is the width of the neckline, I recommend leaving a bit more of the front neck seam open and then positioning the straps to make sure your bra straps won't show (this is advice I realised after the fact so I have to pick the right bra to wear with this dress).

I left the pockets off the skirt for this version, moved the side seams to the side - they are towards the front in the original pattern - and just used the width of fabric I had to cut the skirt pieces and gathered them to fit the bodice.



Although I didn't really use them I will say that the instructions are excellent and give you a very RTW construction method with no hand sewing needed.  If you know your size this is the way to go to make a new dress in next to no time.

I also changed the sweetheart neckline to a straight one and ended up removing the gathers in the sleeves, just because I liked how it looked.  You can see that the excess fabric just wrapped round to the lining side.

It's good to know there are lots of variations you can make with this seemingly simple dress and I will definitely be making more versions.

And a couple of outtakes.......

Photo bombed by my cat, Barney!

 Now I understand why people get excited by twirling shots, not easy to do!