Santa Monica/Cleo Dress

The Style Arc Cleo dress is my new favourite pattern.  I'm quite obsessed with it and planning one in every colour.  I altered the neckline though as I felt it was more open than I was comfortable with and I figured if I wanted one in every colour I may as well ring the changes with the necklines as well, particularly as not all fabrics would lend themselves to the favoured polo neck version. 

I have a self drafted top pattern that I made with multiple neck variations, so I just pulled that out and morphed the necklines onto the dress.  To do this I laid the dress tissue down on the table, lay the self drafted top pattern over the dress and lined up the shoulders and armholes/side seams.  They matched very closely so it was very easy.  I then laid a small piece of tissue, only large enough to trace off the shoulders, armholes and neckline, onto the top of my two pattern pieces.  Traced the lines for the neckline I wanted, PLUS traced the armholes/shoulders and original neckline of the Cleo dress onto the top bit of tissue.  The neckline from the dress was traced with a dotted line, everything else with a  solid line.   The shoulders, neck and armholes of the new pattern piece are cut out, and the lower edge of the pattern piece I've created sits along the upper bust line in a straight line (or a jagged one... I tend to use left over tissue bits for this kind of thing, often scotch taped together to make a large enough bit).   To use it, you pin it over the top of the original dress pattern pieces, matching the lines, and voila, a dress with a different neckline.  Of course it only works if you are raising necklines rather than lowering them but its rare that I would lower a neckline.  It saves tissue, reduces tracing time and saves having multiple full length dress tissue pieces in the envelope  taking up space.  So a few weeks ago I made myself a polo neck, scoop neck, vee neck and round neck version of the basic dress pattern.  Then I figured, what about my old favourite, the Santa Monica tee?  A pattern that I particularly love for its ability to use up scraps via contrast sleeves.  How cool would a dress with contrast sleeves be I thought.... and so the Santa Monica Cleo was born.  As this one is a raglan it had to be fully morphed so I did have to trace the entire dress this time.  But its basically just a very long Santa Monica Tee with the darts from the Cleo dress. 

Anyway, here she is.... the Santa Monica Cleo in black ponte knit.   In addition to the dress I also got two pairs of leggings out of three metres of fabric.  Cut them out on Saturday, sewed them all up on Sunday afternoon.  Not a bad afternoon's work.  My only disappointment currently is that its too warm at the moment to actually wear any of them.  But I'm sure that will be temporary, this being Yorkshire after all.  The dress is just above knee length (due to fabric length restrictions) but having planned short sleeves cut from the fold alongside the leggings, I actually found I could get the long sleeves out with a bit of care and the knit is quite thick and has a lot of lycra and poly in it and will be very warm so the long sleeves are more suitable.  I have some very smart, wide belts with super large buckles that look fab with this dress, but also a chain belt with sparkly dangles on it, designed to wear on the hip, which also looks pretty cool too, but unfortunately a little too recent a look to class as vintage, and therefore more likely to fall into the "why is she wearing that?" stakes.  Not that this will stop me from wearing it if the mood strikes. 

I like the neckline of this, not too low, not too wide, and begging to have a scarf at the neck which would possibly look rather chic and French (if I could get the hang of tying them nicely).  Overall, I'm well pleased with this and I have some more ponte and plans for more of these dresses.