Out of all of my dresses, my olive green M6696 has the most wear. It’s versatile to wear through multiple seasons, looks put together without being stuffy, and it’s super comfortable from the full skirt and pockets.
I wanted another version of it with a more breathable summer fabric. I found this beautiful textured black-and-white linen on Fabric.com, and bought enough of it to make myself this dress and my husband a shirt out of it. It is truly a lovely fabric, has a good weight, and takes to the iron very well.
I decided to add a full collar onto this one (my prior had only the collar band), and the collar feels a bit large. However, I’ll never wear it fully buttoned so this doesn’t bother me. It does make me wonder why the neckline is so large compared to the rest of the garment?
I’ve run into an issue with easing the pleats into the waist band on both my renditions of this dress. It makes me wonder if I traced my pattern pieces poorly, or if it was an error in the drafting. Considering other bloggers haven’t commented about this, I assume it’s a personal problem. I resolved this by adding a slight extra pleat over each of the side seams, where the extra fabric is easily concealed.
I can see myself getting a lot of wear out of this piece this summer. The linen is soft, breathable, and the fit allows for me to not feel like I’m drowning in the Iowa heat and humidity.