Sewing: Next week's project

I'm planning on making a dress before the Shirt Sew-Along project next month. I want to oil up my squeaky sewing muscles. So I dug through my fabric stash, and went through all the patterns I bought recently (love those 99 cent sales) and I've come down to two dresses.


The first one would be Butterick 5520:
pros - classy dress, great fabric, and I can wear it in winter and not freeze to death.
cons - very "I'm going to the office" look, also, I don't have a lace detail in my stash, and I'm not too sure about the shoulder pads.

If I did this one, I'd go for view B. Love the peplum detail. The fabric is a very light gray herringbone. It looks darker in the picture, and looked darker online where I bought it, but I don't think it'll be too bad as a dress. I'll probably find some yellow accents for it to make it pop (belt and lace detail on the shoulder)






The next option would be Simplicity 2362 view E:

Pros and Cons of the Simplicity:
Pro - I have everything at hand now
Con - I'ts a summer dress and I'd have to wait to wear it.

This dress caught my eye because of the sweetheart neckline and the roomy nature of the skirt. I'm cursed with the pear shape and things like this tend to look more flattering on me. I also am thinking ahead to when (in the somewhat distant, somewhat near future) I may be pregnant. (and no, I am currently not pregnant) Patterns that allow more room for a growing tummy are ideal.

The fabric I've already used to make a full skirt with. I wear it all the time, I love the color, and the embroidered detail. I'll probably just place the embroidered edge at the bottom hem (yay no hemming!) and possibly try to make sleeves with it too. We'll see how that plays out, since I don't like the sleeve option in this pattern.






On another note, I was ready to sew up Butterick 5495 until I realized that I had the wrong size. (my hips dont fit a 14, no way no how...)

I've had this knit fabric laying around for ages. I was going to make some sort of dress hybrid with another fabric, but I don't always trust my fabric combos, so it never happened. Another reason I never used it is because it has a flaw in the screen printing.

It's kind of sad actually because I'll either have to cut around the defect, or it'll just be a part of what I make. I have no idea how to grade a pattern larger for all the measurements (B-W-H) or else I'd just go for it. Rest assured, it will be made into something, someday.