Sometimes a girl just needs a new dress… or new shoes… or a new dress so she has an excuse, I mean reason, to buy new shoes.

I’ve always enjoyed sewing my own clothes and since I wear a lot of skirts and dresses, I love being able to sew them for myself. You can pick your own fabric and tailor it just so.

For my March Minerva Blogger project, I picked the Simplicity 1754 pattern. The classic dress design immediately caught my attention.

I decided to go with pattern option A, which has clean lines and a classic shape. And my version is sleeveless, since I love to throw a little cardigan over my dresses because my office tends to get a little drafty no matter what time of year it is.

One little organizing tip for sewing is that I like to set aside one night during the week to cut up any patterns that I know I want to work on.

I also like to cut the fabric at the same time.

Then, when that window of opportunity opens up for a little sewing time – everything is ready to go!

This dress came together quickly. I spent maybe 45 minutes cutting and prepping the pattern. Sewing the dress took about three or so hours. I’m always excited to start and finish a project in just an evening. Especially when it’s something I can wear the very next day!

This dress has some lovely tailored features to it but it wasn’t complicated.

Because the fabric I chose was a little slippery to work with, I did a lot of pinning to hold everything in place.

Does anyone else do this? Yes, that’s a close-up of my sleeve. I really should make myself a little pincushion for my sewing machine. (Put that on the to-do list!)

The fabric that I used is a beautiful linen. It has a very floaty feel to it. It works super well with this dress pattern!

I gave the dress a little boost to the neutral pattern by adding the surprise of a bright orange zipper. The pattern calls for a hidden zipper, so it’s just a cute little addition for the garment’s owner. I thought it was kinda funky.

While this comes together easily, I really love some of the tailored features of this dress. The pattern makes them a little harder to appreciate in the photos but they are there. I particularly love the pleating on the front and back of this dress. I will definitely make this dress again and use a solid cotton. It will make a wonderful summer dress. And a fabric with a satiny finish would really class this up for an evening out!

I should mention, along with this being a very straight forward sewing endeavour without too much challenge, this pattern fits very much true to size. And includes several modifications for length.

Can’t wait to wear this into the office this week!