Hello lovely sewists! As you all know there is a great competition on over at the Monthly Stitch celebrating Indie Pattern Month (which, yes, does deserve capital letters) and that I am guest judging on. Each week of this month there is a themed competition – this week was ‘dresses’ next week is ‘new to me‘. So any pattern, brand, design that you haven’t previously sewn before. Of course the prizes are awesome too, click that link to find out about them :-).
So back to dresses! If I was to enter the Monthly Stitch’s competition – which would present quite a big conflict of interest – I would enter this dress. The Bridgette by Simple Sews.
This is such a simple dress to put together and best of all it’s free! Who doesn’t love free stuff? I have to say I didn’t 100% follow the instructions… or really at all. I noticed that Claire, Simple Sews’ designer, suggests attaching the sleeve at the shoulder and the stitching one very long seam all the way from the hem of the skirt to the hem of the sleeve. I was delighted. I kinda hate doing inset sleeves as I struggle to get the gathers at the shoulder even and think this is a MUCH easier way of doing things (does anyone know if it has a different effect?)
The only alteration I made to this pattern was to insert an exposed zipper instead of an invisible one. I am a massive fan on invisible zippers an believe they are much easier to put in than a centred zipper but I didn’t have any in the house. So I used PatternRunway’s tutorial for inserting an exposed zipper which was super easy to follow. I am very pleased with how it turned out *chuffed*
When I make this dress again – yes I will – I will change the bust darts around so that they finish about 3cm earlier and go up a size. I think I underestimated on the sizing and it’s a tad tighter than I’d like. However, on the whole I’m pretty happy with the results. I’m never really going to be the sort of person who makes a muslin so all in all this is a good result!
So – will you be entering the next round of Indie Pattern Month competitions?
Dresses & Me 
Wow – I love this dress! I’m sad to have missed the deadline for the competition but will pay close attention 😉 Catherine x
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I have this one all cut out to sew right now! Hopefully I can get to it tomorrow night. You version is so awesome, I love the exposed zip on this frock, works so well.
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Thanks Teresa 🙂 This was my first exposed zipper and I’m pretty chuffed too! I can’t wait to see yours
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Such a cute dress!
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Thank you!
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i love the simplicity of this pattern, it means you can choose exciting fabrics! Like you, I prefer attaching sleeves in the flat but I have tended to follow a pattern’s instructions, incase it affects the finished garment somehow. After a particularly bad insertion yesterday I am thinking that I might just do in flat insertion always from now on.
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Oh no! I can totally relate to that! I can’t handle inserting sleeves any other way, I get so stressed out lol. I would totes recommend this pattern and it’s free 😉
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Lovely fabric! I’ve just finished making my “new to me” entry, the Papercut Watson jacket. I would like to make a Lady Skater for the dresses section but I haven’t started it yet and isn’t the deadline today? I think I’m not going to make it in time, but could put it in the “new to me” section as well because it is another new indie designer for me.
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Thanks Zara! yes the deadline has gone now but you still have tonnes of time to enter ‘new to me’. I love the Watson jacket personally! I can’t wait to see your’s 🙂
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Cute dress! Love your fabric choice. 🙂 And that little touch of purple around the bottom is a great contrast!
My “new to me” one is currently in the naughty corner and I’ve stalked away from my sewing machine in a huff. Can’t do the zip up – so much for finished measurements, it’s about 6cm too narrow across the underarms area! *sigh* Gonna have to do a hack job and insert some triangles under the arms or something, as not enough seam allowance to find that much extra width…. 😦
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Thanks Kat 🙂 oh yeah I forgot to mention the purple at the bottom oops! Haha I totally know that feeling, this dress spent a fair bit of time hanging up before I finished it. I hate working on something that i know won’t be perfect so I can relate…
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It looks awesome! You picked a great fabric, and I love the exposed zip (normally not a fan, but yours works) 🙂
I entered the “Dresses” competition – there are some gorgeous dresses in there, so stiff competition!
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I just saw your Sailor girl dress and I absolutely adore it! It so cute and you put in so much work to get the dress exactly how you wanted it with the sleeves, skirt and collar – you look great!
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