Simplicity 2320

I love it when people give me fabric!  Not because I'm cheap, but because I like that my friends think about me when they're going through their scraps.  I love to create new things from old, and to do it on a shoestring budget too.  I had an extra lovely greeting one Sunday at church, when a sweet friend met me with a bag of fabric stash. 

I thought this old-fashioned floral piece had some potential.  I tried it out with Simplicity 2320, a Project Runway inspired pattern.  The dress has a square yoke with a cute little split/dippy notched neckline detail and a pleated skirt front. 

The sleeve variations on the pattern are all cute, but I went with the three-quarter length sleeves.  I cut a size 5 with a size 6 length.  I did the same with the sleeves, but ended up having to shorten them back to a size 5, because it looked like a little girl had quite outgrown her dress, and her mother was trying to make it work for one more wear.   

The pattern sewed up very nicely, and the only nail-biting moment was setting in the square yoke.  After I read the directions more carefully and then inspected my work, I figured it out. 

When I finished sewing the dress, it looked like a pathetic floral choir robe.  I didn't have enough of the right kind of trim for the bodice or sleeves.  I went to bed that night scratching my head, but woke up with better ideas.  I found a wide ribbon scrap and made some fabric rosettes to keep up with the crafty trend.

I will definitely be making this pattern again.  I think it would work great with a solid color, to really show off the lines of the yoke and the pleats.  I think a bigger, more modern print would work too.  I'm also curious how it would sew up in knit, but right now my machine is skipping stitches when I work with knit.  (Fingers crossed that it's a bent needle.)