Finished Project & Pattern Review: Oh New Look 6723 you're so fine!

You're so fine, you blow my mind, hey New Look!

Last week I received an invitation to my cousin's sons' 2yo & 4yo costume birthday party. Yay!

I love costume parties and I have been to enough costume parties to know that all the costumes available are basically lingerie or poorly made polyester nightmares. I'm not a fan of either so I decided to make something myself!

Ideas that I tossed around included characters with different hair to mine such as Annie, Dorothy, Barbie.. so I could wear a wig. I like wigs. Then I remembered that I am getting my hair done up the night before for the work function, so it would be a waste to not get another day out of a salon do. 

I settled on Minnie Mouse so I could wear ears with my hair and be easily identified by the kids and adults. I ordered my Minnie Mouse ears from eBay and they arrived a day later, on Saturday, which inspired to start on my costume. 

I went to Rathdowne Fabrics and bought 2m of spotty red cotton ($5.95/m) and 2m of polyester lining ($2/m). Since I would only wear the dress once or twice as a costume, there was no point shelling out for the top fabrics. While waiting patiently to get served, I went through all my patterns in my head and landed on the New Look 6723. 

New Look 6723 in cotton.

I've admired this pattern for a while now, first time I laid eyes on it was on Flickr, 11 months ago, before I got into the blog scene.

It was only recently when I revisited that photo that I realised it was Cindy of Cation Designs! My sewing hero! It was before she was blogging so click here to go to Flickr to view the pic.

The fabric that she has made the dress in is the same fabric I made the M5850 with! Uncanny! Cindy told me this and linked me to a photo on her blog for "Not Quite OWOP post" and I thought to myself  "I swear I've seen this photo before.. but where?!?"

Haven't blogged this dress yet... it's finished but I still consider it a UFO. Want to add a few more things to it...

So back to the pattern, 6723, I thought that making a costume out of it might be a good way to test the pattern and if I liked it, I could make a version from evening fabric for upcoming housing awards (yep, 3 weeks away and still no dress) and something for the work Christmas party. Best idea I ever had while queuing.

I was really excited to get started on a new sewing pattern, and excited that it was an easy pattern where I wouldn't be glued to the instructions. After struggling with Burda all these weeks, I was in need of something easy to lift my sewing spirits. One day later I ended up with this...

How cute is it!! The bodice is just gorgeous <3 You are probably thinking the skirt looks full.. I replaced the skirt with a full circle skirt so it would look more like Minnie's dress.

The bodice has princess seams so it was quick to put together - no tailors tacks! 

One odd thing about this pattern - the front bodice was not cut on the fold... not sure why... I went along with it anyway and I ended up with half dots on the centre of the bodice which bothered me. To fix this, I stitched the two front pieces on a smaller seam allowance so the dots would appear whole on the bodice. Crisis averted! 

I wasn't too lucky when it came to the back of the bodice. As you can see it's a dotty mess. 

I had to take the back seam in heaps, but even if I didn't I don't think the dots would be perfect anyway as I didn't bother sussing it out when cutting the pieces out.

Pattern Review: New Look 6723 (bodice only)

Size: Size 8

Fabric:

• 1.75m cotton 
• 1.5m polyester lining

Notions: Invisible zipper 22" (black), Gutermann thread (000)

Time: about 8 hours
Cost: Fabric $12; Lining $4; Zipper $5; Pattern $6 (half off sale)

Techniques used: 

• Narrow hem on the sewing machine
• Princess seams

Pattern Modification/Adjustments: 

• Smaller SA on front bodice so dots would not be cut in half
• 3.5cm SA on back bodice
• Replaced skirt with self drafted full circle skirt 

3.5cm seam allowance at the back... dots joined weirdly.

This bodice has a beautiful neckline.

I really like how fun and bright this dress is. It's on my wire mannequin right now in my lounge room and it's a delight to look at. 

When I make the 'evening' version, I'll need to make some adjustments to the bust, it gapes a little bit. I was thinking about taking it in at the centre where the two 'bodice front' pieces join. Do you guys have any suggestions?

When I wear this to the kid's costume party, I might wear a black top underneath so my skin is 'black' like Minnie... if it's a hot day I'll use Hollywood Tape so I don't flash anyone when I reach over for the salad.

The belt is great because it hides the 'half' spots where the skirt and bodice join. Also hides the mismatched seams at the zipper. I have to admit, I didn't pay too much attention when it came to matching the back seams. All the other seams are fine though.

I give myself an 7/10 for this dress. I stay-stitched, understitched, ironed and measured grainlines carefully. I sandwiched the zipper between the shell and the lining using the machine instead of hand-stitching, still looks great, clean machine finish (tutorial here).

Ooh, I have white gloves (from a Super Mario costume) that I will wear on top of the black opera gloves and will also buy a yellow pair of socks to wear on the day - yellow shoes are out because it's an Asian house so we will be taking our shoes off at the door :P I'll post more pics after I attend the party.

In conclusion, I give New Look 6723 pattern 9/10. 

• It's easy enough to make without instructions
• It's simple yet elegant
• It has different options for sleeveless/short sleeve/long sleeve 
• It has different front bodice/neckline options and also a purse pattern
• If the multisize gave me a smaller size - 6 - it would be perfect. An 8 should have fit me perfectly at the waist, but I read on the instructions that there is 6.5cm of ease or something built in?!

I will definitely be making this dress again. New Look, I like you! 

Update: Photos of me wearing this dress at the costume party are blogged here.