New Look 6468 | Pattern Review

I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve been posting here once a week every Thursday for the last few weeks now. I quite like that. Sadly, this first week of October, I’m quite… well, busy. My husband and I celebrated our 9th anniversary on the 3rd of October and we both are taking a week off to spend more time together, which I love, but it also means I’m not doing much of sewing. Since I don’t want to miss my weekly post here, I decided to post a review of this pattern. I actually made the dress back in June, back when this blog was on hiatus. So, enough with the chit-chat, let’s get on with the review, shall we?

The pattern.

The pattern, as expected from the Big Four, has a lot of ease (4.5inches!) embedded. Based on my measurements (I’m 38-30-39), I should’ve made size 16, but I went down a size and it was perfect. The pattern offers four views, but of course you can mix and match the pieces like I did, which means even more options. Yay!

The suggested fabrics for this pattern are: challis, charmeuse, cotton types, crepe, crepe back satin, double georgette, lightweight linen types, and silky types.

The size range: 6-18 / FR34-46 / EUR32-44.

Fabric I used.

Atelier Brunette cotton cambric Bye Bye Birdie in gold. This fabric is nice and soft, has got modern print on it. As with most – if not all – cotton fabric, it is very easy to sew and handle. It feels like cotton lawn to me. I used size 70/10 Schmetz universal needle. One thing to note is that this fabric creases easily and is quite sheer.

The changes I made.

1. Added back yoke, though not on purpose. I cut my fabric upside-down, I thought my fabric was non-directional. I realised I was wrong after I had cut the back bodice, so I had to be “creative” with the rest of my fabric. I managed to use the upside down back bodice for smaller pattern pieces. Sadly I didn’t have enough to make the whole back bodice from the leftover fabric, so I cut the pattern piece into two and added yoke to it. I think it worked fine.
2. Shortened the skirt by 5cm  – I’m only 158cm tall.
3. Shortened the bodice by 2cm.
4. Omitted the chest pockets.
5. Added sleeves from view C – they’re flutter sleeves. Perfect for the Summer.
6. Used french seam finish on all but the sleeve-bodice seams, including the skirt’s in-seam pockets.

The dress.

I really enjoyed making this dress – well, apart from the elastic for the waist bit. That thing is only 1cm wide, soooo fiddly! I love the front button opening detail on the dress, and it was the first time making the fabric button loops for me. The dress has all-in-one neckline and front opening facing. Had I made pure view D, the armholes would’ve been finished using bias binding.

As this is 100% cotton, the dress is very comfortable to wear. I wore this dress a lot in the Summer when we had heatwave, the flutter sleeves were perfect. They add nice detail without warming my upper arms (and pits haha!).

As I mentioned above, the fabric is quite sheer so I have to wear half slip underneath. In retrospect, I think the dress would’ve been better in viscose or crepe, anything with more drape than cotton. Not only that the gathering would look nicer, I think, it would also mean not much ironing needed. I don’t particularly like wearing crumpled dress, and it’s not easy to iron the wrinkles out of this one.

Changes I’d do for the next make.

1. Different fabric choice, maybe viscose crepe?
2. Long sleeves for colder month.
3. Raise the neckline. I don’t particularly like how low the neckline is.

The verdict.

4/5

I know I didn’t follow the instruction to the T, but I did read them thoroughly first (like you do) before I started sewing. I didn’t notice any error or confusing bit(s), and the illustrations did help.

I love the many views and sizes in this pattern. I made my dress for Summer wear, but I think depending on the fabric choice this pattern can be for Autumn/Winter wear too. I’m thinking something like polyester or viscose  crepe would be tights-friendly. I don’t like that they only put illustration on the pattern envelope though. I (and I’m sure I’m not the only one here) would love to see the dress on a real body the way the designer intended. It makes me feel like they didn’t even bother making samples – even though I know it’s most likely not the case.

Would I recommend the pattern? Oh yes! If you’re really new to sewing dresses, just take it slow. Read the instructions carefully and double-check with the illustrations. It’s not a hand-holding kind of pattern, but it’s not a complicated one anyway.

Well that’s all from me today. I’ll be back next time with (hopefully) a review of the Hinterland dress by Sew Liberated. Just a friendly reminder, currently on Instagram there’s a Hinterland dress party going on until the 24th  22nd of October if you’d like to join in. The party is hosted by Sara of @thesaraproject_ and Tori of @thedoingthingsblog, you can check out the hashtag #hinterlandsewoff to see all the beautiful Hinterland dresses.

Please hit the like button if you find this review helpful, or leave me a comment below. You can also follow/subscribe to my blog if you’d like to see more posts from me.

Thank you so much for spending time with me today, hope you have a nice day and weekend, see you again soon.

Happy stitching,

Faye

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