Simplicity 9041: A Faux Wrap Dress

I made a dress. It is tan. It has little white cheetah print on it. It has sleeves. It has a tie. It is a dress. Did I mention that already?

Unfortunately I’ve run out of descriptors. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hate this dress but it’s painfully boring and comes with the vibe that something is off, though I don’t quite know what.

The pattern is Simplicity 9041, something I tossed in my cart at the last second while doing a $2 pattern haul at Joann. It’s a wrap style bodice dress with 3 lengths of skirt, 3 sleeve options and a waist tie. On the website, the skirt is described as “semi full.” It’s (supposed to be) a lovely dress and the pattern has a lot of potential.

I picked up the fabric at SAS fabric near Phoenix. They don’t distinguish between their woven apparel fabric but this, I’m sure, is some sort of viscose chiffon. It’s very lightweight, very shifty and at least a little (if not a lot) difficult to work with.

I bought 3 yards (very generous yards, I should say) and looking back now I can perhaps say that I bought it for the wrong reasons: that it seemed the type of fabric I might be drawn to with something made RTW. Trendy but not too flashy.

Before talking about the sewing process, I should mention that this is my second attempt at the pattern. The first, pictured above, was so close to being a complete winner but I cut the bodice with the stripes going vertically instead of at an angle and it bothers me enough that I can’t bring myself to wear it. Maybe Hobby Lobby will stock more of this fabric come spring and I’ll be able to fix it, but I’m not holding my breath.

Anyway, having made the navy version I had high hopes that this one would go well. For alterations, I removed 1 inch from the bodice pieces and 2 inches from the sleeves (I’ll talk more about it later but spoiler alert: that was overkill). I cut the skirt at the second line for a mid length dress.

Because of the sheerness of the fabric (it’s not terribly sheer, but it is a bit) I decided to line the bodice fabric instead of doing facings. In making the switch, I omitted the interfacing that’s meant for the V part of the bodice pieces. Those lines going up to the neckline are meant to be beautifully crisp, but taking the interfacing out made the spots leading up to the collar a bit floppy.

Attaching the neckband was pretty tricky and actually I’ve seen more than one review of this pattern where the neckband is inserted incorrectly. I sewed it on wrong once and then pinned it wrong at least 3 times. The notches are important and I didn’t give them enough attention! At one point I felt sure the pattern had been wrong in having me cut 2 neckband pieces but it’s not wrong! If you sew it with less than 2, you’ve done it wrong (as I found out…eventually).

I tried the bodice on once it had been completed, sleeves sewn on and everything, and I loved it. The neck band is neat, the sleeves (though mine could be an inch or so longer) are lovely. I was so excited and felt sure I was going to have a winner of a dress on my hands in no time.

Then I went to attach the skirt. I decided to line the skirt too so I was attaching the skirt to the bodice, working with 4 layers of fabric, each of the layers winning an award for maximum shiftiness.

The skirt and bodice are sewn together and then another line is stitched 1/4 inch away to create a channel for elastic at the waist. As you may have guessed, this was somewhat of a nightmare trying to keep all the layers lined up. And I would say I was only semi-successful in this endeavor. Then, to add to what was already a precarious waist seam, the elastic I inserted was pretty poor quality. I thought it would be fine but in reality, the waist seam has very little stretch because of it.

I hemmed the bottom of the skirt with a blind stitch. And then the final step is making and attaching the waist ties. How it is attached is very strange to me. Essentially, you’re supposed to butt these up to the side seams and sew with a small seam allowance. This attaches the ties but leaves the raw edge of the tie totally exposed. That’s why I think it’s weird. It’s not ideal, but with the elastic at the waist, I don’t think there’s a better way if you want the tie attached. I went for unattached and sewed the two tie pieces together and made one long sash.

Once all the sewing was done, I was finally able to try on the finished dress. And the result of all my work was…lackluster. I tied and retied the sash. I played with the hem. I even trimmed away the lining on the skirt but I couldn’t put my finger on what the issue was. So I took it to my husband and daughters to see if they could see the problem. It was perplexing. And here’s what we decided: we don’t know what’s wrong with it. It might be the wonky, uninterfaced bodice pieces. It might be the length of the skirt (should be longer, maybe?). Personally, I think the waistline is a smidge too high, that when I sewed all those shifty layers together, I accidentally sacrificed too much fabric and made the bodice shorter than intended.

Whatever the problem is, it’s annoying enough that I truly don’t think I’ll ever wear this dress again. If I wore blouses ever, I’d definitely consider hacking into this to try to fix it, but alas, I don’t. Let’s call a spade a spade, but in this case the spade is a loss. The dress is destined for the thrift store.

Maybe I’m a fool but even with two solid fails under my belt, the pattern still calls me, and I want a wearable dress from it, darn it! Both of my versions of this pattern were so close to success. With a bit more adjusting and especially the right fabric, I really think this pattern could produce a truly great dress so a Round Three is in order, someday.

Pattern: Simplicity 9041
Size: 14
Adjustments: Shortened bodice 1 inch, sleeves 2 inches; omitted bodice facings and interfacing-used lining fabric instead; and attached waist ties to each other to form an unattached sash
Fabric: viscose crepe from SAS Fabrics
Cost: pattern $2; fabric $9 total for 3 yards; thread, lining fabric, elastic and interfacing (used on the neckband) all from stash
Would you make this pattern again?: yes! Hopefully I make something I like this time, though!