The 'famous' Joan dress, mark 2

By sheer coincidence, I was two thirds of the way through this latest project when I found out I was one of the winners of the Stitcher of the Year competition with the same pattern - the Joan dress by Sew Over It. I actually bought all the supplies for this months ago directly from their website when they had a flash sale on. I've put off making it for a while, partly because i knew how long it would take and partly because it's harder to get excited about sewing work clothes!  It is a beautiful dress though and I need some new smart clothes for work, so I decided I needed to bite the bullet. 

The fabric I chose was a dark green luxury crepe with a gold lining. I used the Sew Over It colour-match service for thread and zip which was ace as I received a parcel with everything I needed to make the dress. My Mum made this dress using the same luxury crepe in purple earlier in the year which looked gorgeous so I was looking forward to the finished result.

I didn't enjoy sewing with this fabric at all, it was really thick and hard to pin while also really slippery, which was unexpected. On the plus side, I managed to attach the lining to the kick pleat first time - it really flummoxed me last time I made the dress, not sure why!  The kick pleat itself is probably the worst part of this project, I just can't seem to get it to sit properly. 

This is still a big project as the dress is fully lined, but it definitely seemed quicker than last time (despite stopping halfway through to make the Poppy Playsuit). Hopefully that means I'm getting better at sewing. It is really comfortable due to being fully lined and I know I'll wear it loads. I wore it today and I did find that the collar keeps sticking up so will add a few hand stitches to keep it in place. Here is the finished result (please excuse how tired I look, it's the end of a long day and I was up at 5 this morning to go to Edinburgh!):