New Look 6013: dress for our never ending summer

So here we are at Easter at the beginning of April and it's still sweltering hot here in Sydney. For all of you in the northern hemisphere where it's still snowing I'm sure we share the same sentiments - enough of this extended weather patterns, it's time for a change in season!

But it has given me an opportunity to finish and wear another summer dress that I cut out at the beginning of the year but hadn't yet finished. I tend to cut out a lot of projects in batches to make the most of my sewing time, but the danger in that approach is that sometimes I don't get around to finishing them and they become UFOs.

Not this time though! This is New Look 6013, one of those wardrobe patterns with a few different garments in one. I bought this pattern from one of those marvellous Spotlight bargain sales mainly for the jacket because I love a shawl collar.

I hadn't really planned on making the dress because I have two other similar patterns (Burda 3/2009 #107 and Vogue 8319) which I made the Vogue dress way back in 2010 in this post. I loved that dress and only stopped wearing it because after many washes the fabric was very faded. I can't believe I made that dress eight years ago now - time does fly by!

I bought some cotton linen in a blue polka dot print from Spotlight during their January sale earlier this year and figured it was perfect for this pattern so I made it up anyway. It has turned out great, but it took quite a bit of fiddling around with the fit to get it right though. The neckline sat way lower than it looks in the photo pattern, the top of those vertical darts on the front sat closer to my waistline than my bust and the underarm seam was so low that my bra strap was visible. Not a good look.....

So I did a quick and a bit dodgy fix which worked out fine. While I was wearing the dress I lifted it up by the shoulder seams until the dress felt like it was in the right position but not too tight under the arms and basically pinned out a new shoulder seam. I sewed a new seam line almost 4cm lower than the original shoulder seam, so you can see how much excess space there is in that area.

I checked the pattern pieces to make sure I didn't cut out a larger size (it's a multi sized pattern) but I cut the right bits out so I can't explain it. Lifting it up at the shoulder seam also brought the hem up to the right spot for me so this fix sorted out a few problems. It still sits a bit low at the front and back neckline but it's not inappropriate so I can live with it.

Apart from that fitting issue it's a pretty straight forward pattern. The princess seams make it easy to get a nice fit through my sway back, and it has a vent to make it easy to walk in.

I've fully lined this in a thin cotton lawn in white because the polka dot fabric is a bit see through but it doesn't add any bulk to the dress. I haven't made this overly fitted like I usually do - I figured a good bit of ease is necessary for a summer dress and I knew this fabric would probably bag out a little anyway.

Whilst I like how this dress turned out in the end I'm not sure I'll make this pattern again, mainly because I prefer how the Vogue pattern that I made previously fits much better than this one. But with the high temps we're having at the moment it's just what I needed.