Sharon Sews

I prewashed all of my fabric purchases after I returned home from my shopping excursion. With the fabric prewashed I was ready to go. I consider myself a good sewer and rate myself on an intermediate level (but of course, what is the scale? my own personal opinion as to what I consider a beginner and what I consider advanced!). However, I hate to alter patterns! I liked it when clothing designs were baggy and unconstructed - not so much for their look (because it actually was a bit dowdy and sloppy) but because I didn't have to do so much alterations to the patterns! I wasn't sure how this one would fit in the bodice. It didn't appear to have that much ease built into the design and I typically need to do a FBA to all of my tops. I decided to cut it and sew it up as is and make adjustments (if needed) on the next one. (See, I was so optimistic about this dress that I had fabric for the second one planned already.) I did lenghten the bodice piece by 1". I knew that the

Simplicity just released their version of the Hotpatterns Hippy Chick dress. They are calling it the "IT" dress of the fall season - we'll see. I haven't been paying that much attention to the fall fashion trends so they just may be right. I had purchased the Hotpatterns dress pattern when it was first released, but after reading reviews on patternreview.com I put the pattern on the back burner. To be honest, as cute as I thought the dress was (and after seeing Gigi Louis' version you'll understand why) I knew that I did not want to spend the time that would be required to figure out the alterations I would need. I was especially concerned about the sleeves - it seemed to be a common theme among many of the reviews from the Hotpatterns line that the sleeves were very small and that is one area that I sometimes have difficulty in adjusting with the Big 4 pattern companies already. I still love the Hotpatterns version and plan to make it at some point, sinc