taking a new look at New Look

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the purple dress - I guess it's a winner in all your books just as much my own!  In answer to the questions/comments to the last post:

Lizzie - I sewed this dress using the sewing machine since I didn't do a muslin and wasn't brave enough for the finality of an overlocked seam.  I did overlock the seam edges, though that probably wasn't necessary since I don't think fabric will fray. Just habit I guess!

Katherine H and Dilly - I don't know anything about knit linings or how knit linings work I'm afraid, I've never actually sewn a knit garment with a lining (actually I sewn very few knit garments at all).  But I do have a RTW suit that is made from a stretch lycra/cotton blend, and it has a lining of knit (sort of like matte texture swimsuit fabric) and it seems to be sewn the same way as normal.  Anyone else have any tips on how to line a knit dress, or better question do you ever bother lining a knit dress?

Anonymous - the next time I wore this dress I did wear an old fashioned slip under it, and it worked fine.  And thanks for the tip on using whisperweft for the interfacing, I do have some stretchy interfacing I picked up from a garage sale one time, but it's quite stiff so I can see that whisperweft would be a much better weight.

And Trena (aka the Slapdash Sewist) - this whole post is dedicated to you! I've used New Look patterns in the past that have ended up as shapeless potato sacks, so I was pleasantly surprised how this one turned out.  I did completely ignore the pattern sizes though and instead went off the finished garment measurements and used nil ease since this was a knit fabric.

To test whether this was a one off miracle for New Look, I've just made another New Look pattern I picked up at the same time: New Look 6968. 

This pattern is quite similar to the last but with some different neckline options and I couldn't choose between, so I bought them both.  I made view C, the dress the model is wearing, but instead of using a leopard print I used this dusty pink graphic print stretch cotton sateen picked up from Spotlight some time last year:

The print reminds of one of those inkspot tests used by psychiatrists, but it looks pretty good made up into a dress:

And loh and behold, another nicely fitting dress with minimal fitting changes.  Again I made a size 8 on the top grading out to a size 12 on the bottom below the waist, instead of the size 8 bust, size 12 waist and size 14 hips the pattern sizing suggested.  I didn't do a swayback alteration either because I knew that with the waist seam and darts in the back I could get a close fit without one, and look how it turned out:

Hmmm, this dress may be competing with New Look 6000 in the favourite stakes! The collar on this is very interesting, there's basically this hole in the left side collar:

that the tie-end of the right side collar slides through:

up and over to look like this:

And the back of the collar looks like this:

Since it is winter around these parts and I've made yet another summery style dress, this is how I wore it work on Wednesday:

It still looks good hidden under a jacket, that neckline tie peeks out nicely and is like wearing the accessory you're wearing when you're not actually wearing any accessories!  I'm so hopeless at remembering to put necklaces on in the morning and Anna is good at fiddling with them until they break so I really like this tie detail.

So moral of this post: don't overlook New Look, there are some hidden gems amongst their offerings.  Plus they're (generally) really easy to make, which makes a nice change sometimes.