Simple dress in stripes: Vogue 2659

I live a pretty casual lifestyle - apart from corporate wear for work, the rest of my wardrobe needs are for simple, casual and comfortable clothes. Of course that's what I rarely sew! After making that very pretty but limited occasion wear purple floral print dress I decided to make a simple t-shirt dress that would easily go from the school gate to the playground to the shopping centre. I had some firm ponti fabric in white with navy blue stripe in the stash bought some time last year from Spotlight that I turned into this:

I used Vogue 2659, an early 2000s pattern that is now OOP and no one else on the internet seems to have made! I've made the top a few times but not the dress,

I chose this pattern because I didn't want darts or seam lines to mess up the stripes, and I was going for a loose fitting style. I was hoping that the firmness of the fabric would mean it would skim over my curves and not cling, but it actually billowed out and puffed up in a rather unflattering way around my lower back and on the front in the area around my waist. So, as usual I ended up making a very fitted dress because I took it in slightly at the sides and put two darts in the back to get rid of that excess fabric. So now the dress follows my natural shape much better:

The two vertical darts at the centre back aren't too noticeable, altough the back view clearly demonstrates that old adage that horizontal stripes do make you look wider, or in my case emphasise the width! But now I'm in my late 30s and having had two children I've come to accept my body shape as it is, so I still like this dress big butt or not.

The front view shows that a curved French dart would have done wonders for those slight folds of fabric at the front, but I can live with it. I give myself 90% on the stripe matching - the side seams lined up perfectly, but the stripes on one of those shoulders is slightly off. I did find the sleeve cap on this to have quite a lot of fabric to ease in, so I was just happy enough to get those sleeves in without puckers let alone matching the stripes fully.

Construction wise not much to say - I sewed it all on the overlocker and at the neckline I just used steam a seam to turn under the edge and top-stitched it with a twin needle. I shortened the sleeves from elbow length to cap sleeve because it's still pretty hot around here

Despite the fact I had intended to make a loosefitting casual dress and I ended up with a fitted dress that is shorter than I usually wear instead, this dress was perfect to wear to a 6 year old's birthday party yesterday with some flat sandals so I'm still calling this one a success!