New Look 6968: Simple city dress

After making a floaty light as air dress in white linen I've reverted to my usual style and made a close fitting sharp dress in a dark colour. I used New Look 6968 which is now officially my absolute go to pattern for a fitted sheath dress to make my latest dress for work. Actually I've just noticed on the Simplicity site that this pattern is now discontinued which I'm a little surprised about because it is such a classic style, but I'll be doing my best to keep it's memory alive!

I've made this dress in a rayon by Michael Kors that I bought from Tessuti Fabrics last November, which thanks to the stretch of the fabric and the fitting refinements I've made previously to this pattern means the fit of this dress is impeccable. Having a waistline seam makes it easier to fit the back over my swayback than a one piece sheath dress, and as you can see from this side photo there is no pooling of fabric in my lower back:

Because I've made this several times previously I don't need to make any more fitting changes so I can pretty much whip this up in a few hours straight from the pattern. Although this time I made View A which has 6 darts at the neckline, and pintucks across the sleeves which was a bit fiddly and added a bit of time to the process. I didn't think those details would be visible in this fabric, so I decided to sew them with the excess fabric on the right side to make them stand out as a feature:

There's not much more to say about this pattern really - invisible zip and a walking vent at the centre back seam, fully lined and a machine stitched hem because I was in rush to finish this Monday night so I could wear it to a big meeting at work on Tuesday! The stitching at the hem isn't too visible so I can live with it, even though I'd usually hand stitch it to make invisible.

I don't think this will be the last New Look 6968 you'll see around here!