Simplicity Shirt Dress 8014

A review of Simplicity Vintage Shirt Dress S8014

Reviewed by Denbeesewswhat on 19th October, 2018

Again this another ‘famous’ social media pattern and I fully planned to make view D however I realised that I am not big on waist ties / belts as I never feel they hit at the right place for me.

I ended up making View B with no sleeves and no belt loops but with the pockets.

I used a what I can only assume is a polyester mix fabric – I am pretty sure there are absolutely no manmade fibres in this and whatever happens I need to stay away from naked flames! I picked up 3 metres very cheaply (about £3/mtr) from a local supermarket where I live in Oman.

I am 5’1” with 34”/28”/37” measurements, so cut a size 10 based on the finished garment measurements and used 1 ¾ metres of fabric so pretty economical. I finished the skirt just above the knee.

This was a relatively easy pattern to follow and as I have done a few button bands and collars now I can usually get by with the instructions provided by the big 4 companies.

I only made a couple of changes to this dress and they were: reducing the bodice length by 1” and reducing the skirt length by 1”. I didn’t use the button placement piece and instead placed the buttons / buttonholes myself. As I mentioned I left off the sleeves and just bias bound the armholes with some navy ribbon.

One big difference with this dress as opposed to other dresses I have made is that it’s completely finished on the inside and this is because I french seamed everything. In order to get the pockets done this way I followed Sian’s tutorial (Kittenish Behaviour on YouTube) for the McCalls 6696 Sew-a-long which is fantastic and takes you through it step by step – highly recommend.

Overall I am really pleased with this dress, the fabric means it doesn’t crease – ever, its very comfortable and will get a lot of wear.