I was very excited to finally get to make the pattern from Dottie Angel. It's a simplicity pattern 1080, and it was hard to find in the Portland area so I finally ordered it on line. I have been a fan of the Dottie Angel blog for a couple of years have always loved her style and in particular the house frock she was always wearing...it had nice large pockets. When I saw the pattern I knew it was a dress for me. I had several of the same problems that others had. The tucks were too high and the instructions for the arms was kind of funky. I have never put bias tape on the inside seams either. I'm glad I decided to make a muslin for this pattern as it was easy to fix what seemed to be fitting problems. Several others lowered the tucks by about 2" and did variations on the sleeve. I removed the ties that go around the back. Thought I lower the side tucks and I think I can go even a little lower by about 1/2" or more as there is some strange gaping around the underarms. I like the pattern and it's pretty straight forward if you understand sewing. If I was a beginner I would have been very frustrated, I mean I was frustrated when I made the dress...it fit terribly...even my husband commented that it "fit weird". After researching on line about others problems here & here , you can also see Dottie Angel Facebook page that has several photos of the interior of the dress, these helped me a lot. The dress is super cute and when I made adjustments to fit my body it's really comfortable. I was happy that I made a muslin. The fabric that I used was an old sheet I got at the goodwill specifically to use the fabric for this type of project. Though now I want to dye the dress a little darker...maybe a blue. I can see myself making several of these over the winter months for next summer...or I can wear them all winter with a sweater...either way I see several more of these dresses in my future.
