At the Leeds Sewing meet-up in the autumn there was a big swop as usual, you could take any patterns or fabric you didn’t want, pop them on the table and help yourself to someone else’s donation. I was very good and resisted fabric, but I did fall for a couple of patterns. One was Vogue 2412 which is now unfortunately out of print.

I think it’s going to be a very versatile pattern, altogether there are nine different views, three necklines, four sleeve options, never mind choice of length! It’s a size 14-18, whereas I would have preferred 12-14, but I decided to just cut out the 14 and see how it goes!

I’m wanting to make up a length of beautiful charcoal grey wool cashmere fabric into a simple dress and I think this could be perfect. First though I wanted to try it out on a cheaper length of fabric…

A couple of years ago at the Leeds meet-up I bought two lengths of lovely boiled wool from B&M fabrics, I seem to remember it was only about £5 a metre, but it feels lovely and soft, drapes nicely and a bonus, it’s machine washable! I bought it in a dark navy blue and a beautiful peacock blue/ teal colour.

Just before Christmas I decided to make the navy fabric in Vogue 2412. I wanted the longer length, with a collar and long sleeves. The fabric was lovely to sew with, though I didn’t realise until I was at least half way through just how much stretch it had one way! As my overlocker is friends with me at the moment I overlocked all the edges, though they didn’t look like they would fray at all, it just gives a neater finish.

The pattern calls for a narrow hem just top-stitched and edge-stitched. I overlocked the hem and then just stitched with a double row. It looks pretty neat. The edge stitching then continues right round the front edge and the collar of the dress. The only thing I would change with this pattern and fabric is I would use a lining fabric or a cotton for the under collar, as the double layer of wool makes it quite chunky.

Everything went swimmingly until it came to the buttonholes!My sewing machine decided it didn’t like the wool, it just refused to move it under the buttonhole maker. I thought it might be because of the stretch. In the end I decided to make them the ‘old-fashioned’ way with the zig-zag stitch. They looked OK until I came to cut them and the stitches just pinged open as the two bars were too close to each other! I ended up hand stitching over the edge of the top four buttonholes before deciding I could get the dress on and off with just those four, so the rest are sham buttonholes, with the buttons stitched through all layers!

I still wore it on Christmas Day – I found a pretty scarf which just nicely covered up my buttonholes! It was lovely to wear, comfortable and I think it looks quite elegant!

On Boxing Day I decided to cut out the peacock blue fabric, it’s a lovely shade of deep, rich blue. This time I decided to make the V neckline. This did involve a slight pattern hack as the V neck is on the sleeveless version, which has narrower shoulders. I still wanted sleeves, so I used the neckline of one and lined it up so I could work out a shoulder and arm pattern from the other.

Again it went together nicely. I had a bit more of a play with the buttonhole attachment this time, I interfaced a scrap to test under the same conditions, I found that by increasing the stitch length on the zig-zag my machine coped much better. So this one actually has working buttons all the way down!

This pattern seems great for an everyday sort of dress, comfortable and easy to wear, but it can be dressed up or down. I also think it will be lovely in summer, sleeveless in linen. I think I might be ready to cut out my cashmere now!