Simplicity 2588 Dress & #patternswap19

When Alice @the.polka.dot.palace and Emma @thezipperfoot announced that they'd be hosting The Great Big Pattern Swap again this year, I was quick to rummage through my pattern stash to find some neglected beauties to send to new, more appreciative homes. I managed to snap up a couple of lovely new-to-me patterns in return and I've now sewn up one of them. Here's my version of Simplicity 2588, kindly sent to me by Pavla.

Simplicity 2588 is one of the Project Runway series, and is for a dress with fitted, princess seam bodice, the possibility to make it sleeveless or use flat or pleated sleeves, neckband/yoke options, and a pleated flared or straight skirt. The pattern now seems to be out of print (correct me if you know otherwise!) but, as I type at least, there are copies available to buy on Amazon and ebay if you like the look of it.

The skirt choice was a no-brainer for me - flared every time! I considered going for a sleeveless dress, but ultimately decided that I'd get more wear out of one with sleeves, and chose the flat sleeve option.

When I made my toile, I used the slimmer neckband piece but found the neckline was too wide for me (I'd have been constantly fiddling with it to get it to sit right!). On my finished version, I used the wider yoke piece instead, which definitely avoids this problem. If anything, it goes the other way and the neckline now feels a little high. It's not going to stop me wearing this dress, but if I make another one I'd possibly trim down the yoke by a centimetre or so to make the neckline just a touch lower.

In terms of sizing, for my measurements the pattern recommends a 16 for the bust, and an 18 for my waist and hips. Based on the finished garment measurements, 16 for the bust seemed the right choice but I thought the 18 might be a bit big at the waist, and with the flared skirt I knew hip sizing wouldn't be too important. I decided to make a straight size 16, but taper to a fractionally smaller (about 1.2 cm instead of 1.5) seam allowance at the waist on the side seams only to allow a bit of extra breathing space. Thankfully that worked out nicely.

I also lengthened the bodice by 1.5 cm and the skirt by 5cm, which are both fairly standard adjustments for me (I'm around 5'9" for reference).

The sewing process was fairly straightforward. As with all commercial patterns, the instructions don't hold your hand every step of the way like indie patterns tend to, but I didn't find anything confusing or hard to follow. The pattern uses a lapped zip; I tend to favour invisible zips, but I decided to follow the instructions and use a lapped zip this time and I'm glad I did. Plus it's good to do different things every now and then, isn't it?

The fabric I used is a lovely cotton voile from Seasalt (in case you don't know, Seasalt currently have a sale on some of their fabric - you're welcome, and/or I'm sorry if you didn't want to be tempted!). It's a great print, and it's a nice cool fabric to wear in the sunny weather we've been enjoying in the last week or so.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my Simplicity 2588 and I could definitely see myself making another, albeit with the slight alteration to the neckline I mentioned above. I'm happy to have given this pattern a new home, and I hope that the patterns that I sent out have futures that are just as successful with their new owners! And a big thank you to Alice and Emma for organising the swap!