John Kaldor microfibre fabric with poppies was my choice for this month’s Minerva Crafts UK project. It’s September and it’s also Spring so I’ve used New Look 6067 with 3/4 length sleeves.

This dress will be a ‘9to5’ workhorse dress because it’s shapely and work appropriate.

Above is the dress kit I ordered from Minerva Crafts.

After reading previous reviews of this pattern I decided to:

• lower the neckline to necklace height
• lower the v-opening
• Line the bodice
• interface the front neckline

I did test this pattern and used size 14 but found that I could size the bust down to size 10 which I’ve done on this version.

• Forward shoulder adjustment
• shortened the skirt
• raised the centre back pleat 

I did grade the bodice so the bust was size 10 and the waist was size 14. You can see I redrew the back neck facing.

Below is the finished back neckline.

I shorten skirt pieces initially below my ‘derriere’ but then I had to shorten the hem after the test dress by 5 cm. I didn’t want to waste my poppy print fabric. 

It looks like this pattern was printed in 2011 so it’s not new and has been road tested by alot of good sewers.

What I was able to do is add a hint of piping at the neckline.

You can see I checked how this looked before I progressed with making this dress.

I like how it worked out and didn’t add too much weight to this neckline.

There is a lot of hand sewing involved with the lined bodice and the skirt hem. The trick that works for me is to ‘wax the threads’.

Lots of threads. If you’re technical, I start of with a dozen waxed threads. I usually need another two or three to sew on the hook and eye at the top of the zipper and then to sew up any loose ends.

Thanks again Minerva Crafts UK to this new Spring dress.