So last week I attended Blogtacular and I really wanted to make something colourful and fun to wear so I stood out. I have been quite busy lately so haven't had much time to sew for myself so I wanted to make something that was quick and simple to make. As I had made a Tilly and the Buttons Cleo dungaree dress before I decided this was the perfect pattern to make!

Back in December I made my first Cleo, to test the pattern I just used some black corduroy that I have had in my stash for years. This time I wanted to use one of our Japanese cotton/linen fabrics as they have some really unusual designs, I chose to use one of our newest Echino fabrics called Blossom Pink.

The pattern needed 1.9m so I cut and pre-washed 2m to be safe as I wasn't sure how much this fabric would shrink, it ended up shrinking by 5cm so I'm glad I cut some extra. Usually I'm quite naughty and don't pre-wash my fabrics as I'm usually too eager to get started but this time I wanted to make sure it fitted perfectly and didn't shrink once I had made it!

The last Cleo I made turned out too big so I decided to go down a size this time. When I made my first Cleo I cut the paper pattern pieces out for my size and this made it a bit complicated to go down a size so I ended up taping the pattern back together and tracing the pattern off in the smaller size. Lesson learned for next time - always trace the pattern!

Cutting and sewing the pattern together all went really smoothly though. I made the whole thing in a day and it felt so easy to make, there were no fiddly bits to struggle with.

The pattern did require you to do some decorative top stitching though. For my first Cleo I wasn't very brave and stitched black on black where as this time I wanted to try and use a colour that would be more visible. I found a peachy colour which was part of a set of Cotton+Steel Sulky threads that I had received as a gift, I had been saving these threads for special projects and I thought it would look lovely as some top stitching. The colour doesn't stand out too much (I had thought it might stand out more than it did) but my top stitching is improving so maybe next time I will choose a thread that really stands out!

I love how my Cleo turned out, the only thing I was a bit disappointed with was the positioning of the print on the front of the dress. As I chose quite a large scale choppy design I didn't want to worry too much about pattern matching as I wanted it to end up looking quite random. However the way the pattern pieces were positioned on the fabric meant that both front pieces ended up being cut out of the section of the pattern where it repeated and I ended up with the print being repeated too close together and looking slightly odd. I guess this wouldn't happen if you were to use a print that repeated more frequently. So one tip I would say if using a large scale print like this, do check how the pattern is positioned, there was a little bit of room on the fabric to move the pieces if I needed to so this could have been avoided.

This Cleo was really comfy to wear as a summer outfit with a t-shirt, next time I might increase the length slightly to allow for not wearing tights but over all I loved wearing it and I will definitely be making more!

If you want to make one of these yourself we have put together a Cleo kit including the pattern, dungaree buckles, interfacing and 2 metres of your choice of Japanese cotton/linen fabric (including the one I used). The great thing about buying it as a kit is we have taken 10% off the price so it is 10% cheaper than if you were to buy all the pieces individually!