I want to try making some dresses for myself, so I thought that it would be better to start with something that doesn’t need to be really fitted and seemed to me that a Japanese pattern would do the job.

The pattern I used is the view A from the Book “Stylish Dress Book”, just because it is not fitted but it uses darts which I also wanted to try.

Although my hips are a size 8, I made size 6 because I didn’t wanted it to be too large in the chest and I thought it had enough room for my hips 😉 I was right, there was plenty of room all-over. The pattern has the same height for all sizes (!!) and when I compared with one that I like the fit, realized that it was not necessary to add the hem allowance (I am not tall!), so that was the only change I made to the original.

The fabric is a cotton with navy blue and white stripes that at the time seemed good for the dress, but later a realized it should have been lighter.

In the book the dress is without a belt, but that way I would look like a little square, so I prefer to use it 😉

As you can see it has darts, which I made for the first time and although they are not very clear in the photo, I was pleased with how they turned out.

To summarize, I am not completely happy with it as you can see in the picture above it makes a bump in the front which I think might be because of the fabric weight, like mentioned before. As a positive point, I like the gathered part at the front and the darts and it was good to practice for the next one. Any way I think the dress is good enough to go to the beach or to use in those days of the summer holidays that are meant to do absolutely nothing! 🙂

Hope you are having a great week.