Know Me 2016

Yep, I finally tried ME2016, the dress made by thousands and rather beloved by the sewing community.

It was a risky project for me because I don’t like puffy sleeves and Know Me 2016 is the ultimate puffy sleeve dress! But it also has a tiered skirt, slash pockets and angled waist seam.

After deciding to replace the puff sleeves I tried a simple sleeve gathered into a cuff and a short cap sleeve… but didn’t like either of them so off they came.

Since I’d already constructed the dress when trying the sleeve ideas, I lined the bodice but then used a neckline facing and matching bias binding to finish off the armholes. The skirt was left unlined.

To get a good fit I cut a size 14 then moved the bust dart upwards and did a small bust adjustment. The skirt was far too long for me so I cut off 15cm from the hem.

The common feedback I knew in advance but still ignored was the lack of gathers around the curved skirt seam on the lower tier. If you make this definitely slash and spreading to add more gathers.

The pockets are deep and roomy, the bodice fits nicely and I LOVE the fabric. This is Cloud Collage on cotton sateen, an exclusive Minerva fabric. Its all my favourite colours and such a dream to sew.

This is a long way to say that unfortunately I think the dress is a bit of a dud for me. The curved waist seam (higher at the front, lower at the back) makes me feel extremely wide at the waist. The straight bust darts are a little distracting visually even though they fit well.

Of course I’ll still wear the dress as the fabric is so fantastic. In fact I bought the same print in a viscose challis base!