The good the bad and the old man pajama fabric.

So, here's another version of Simplicity 3835. I'm feeling a bit meh about it, to be honest, which is a bummer, cos I really started out having high hopes for this one.
The fabric is a beautifully soft rayon from Global Fabrics, and feels like a very drapey cotton sateen. Unfortunately, unlike a nice friendly cotton sateen, this fabric has rather more attitude - everywhere that is even vaguely on the bias stretched, so much so that some of the little flower motifs doubled in width. Due to the fabric shimmying around during cutting (and..ahem...partly due to the fact that I had a 4 year old helping me at the time) the front is ever so slightly off grain, and pulls to the right a bit. Not so much that anyone would probably notice, to be honest, but it aggravates me and probably means that I won't end up wearing it as much as I would have otherwise.

I also changed the sleeve, adding a bit more length and making the bottom more of a bell shape. I hemmed the sleeve edges with black satin bias tape, and then gathered them with a 1 cm elastic (25 cm long, for my records ;-) ) I ended up facing the neckline with bias tape, too, then stitching a channel for the elastic, because turning it under and hemming it was an extremely swear-worthy experience.
I like the sleeves, and I love the feel of the fabric, but I don't think that the fullness of the sleeves works with the fullness of the body - I think the proportions and balance are much better with the sleeve as it is in the pattern.

So...not a total wadder, but probably more of a wear around the house type thing. My confidence in this one wasn't at all helped by my husband saying "mmmm. Looks a bit like old man pajama material, doesn't it?"...so of course, now every time I look at it, I imagine just that. Cheers love :-) (In his defence, though, he had just taken both boys grocery shopping for two full hours so I could sew. Many brownie points were earned.)

Oh well. Win some, lose some.