Red dress! - Vogue 7356

It turns out that now I'm spending a significant portion of my days working on a laptop writing blog posts isn't as attractive as I thought it might be.  But I have been sewing A LOT!

I'll record the most recent make now and then hopefully fill in the gaps as I'm not sure what to make next!

I bought Vogue 7356 in Harrogate quite a while (maybe 8 years) ago but recently saw @durbzdesigns  post a version on instagram which gave me the push I needed.  Also my sister told me to make the 'crazy option' when I suggested two pattern choices for the fabric.

The fabric is a stretch linen viscose mix from 1st for Fabrics.  It has the look of linen but a little more drape and slightly less creasing than pure linen.

I made a little pattern adjustment before I started, I find garments with gathers at the neck a bit poofy as I don't have the bust to fill them out so I tried to reduce the amount of fabric both width and length ways above the bust.  I couldn't find any instructions on how to do this so just made some cuts and went for it.  I tried to reduce from the top rather than the waist up as I didn't want to make the waist line smaller.

I took 2cm from the width of the bodice band but wish I'd taken double that.  I also had to take about 3 inches from the neck band as when I tried it on it was ridiculously low - I had checked but I supposed a tape measure doesn't have the give the fabric does (I cut the bands length wise so they didn't stretch).

I think I'm more likely to wear the dress as a pinafore over a t-shirt otherwise in the sun my back is likely to end up the same colour as the fabric but I did feel glamorous in the back garden.  I think Vogue probably had this in mind as one of the fabric suggestions is pinwhale corduroy which could be cool for the winter.

I don't wear red often as it reminds me of school uniform (I've included a photo of me aged 13 for comedy purposes) but I really love this.

I've never seen another school with red shirts, has your school uniform put you off wearing anything?