I've been wanting a simple chambray shift for awhile now. I love the ease of wearing a denim dress. Feels dressed up and down at the same time. I bought some denim from
JoAnns ages ago for this project just waiting for the weather to warm up so I could sew it.
After a lot of searching I finally landed on
New Look 6145 for the base of my dress. I knew that I wanted a simple shift with sleeves and french darts and this was the closest that I could find. I like that it was kinda a blank slate since I would be changing it quite a bit.
I did make quite a few changes to the pattern to suite my taste. I made the neckline less boatneck shaped and more of a crew neck. I also lengthened the sleeved to a longer short sleeve length instead of the cap sleeve that was included. The pattern does call for a center back seem and zipper even though you can get in and out with out it. But I did add the zipper because I wanted the look of the exposed metal zipper. The pattern also has back darts for shaping, but I did not sew those as I wanted more of a cocoon shape. The other thing that I changed was I did a large 4 inch hem just because I prefer the look of that to the smaller hem width.
I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. The only thing is that I wish I had pegged the bottom a bit instead of having the hem slightly A line as it is. This is not because it would fit better, just because I prefer the shape that way.
All in all a great dress. I look forward to being able to wear it out or dress it down for the park. Love everyday appropriate dresses like this one.
