DIY Dress: Simplicity 8636 “ Cynthia Rowley”

That Black Chic
by That Black Chic

Mori wearing Simplicity 8636 “ Cynthia Rowley” View A.Hello Peeps! First off let me tell you that’s not me in the pictures it’s my daughter Mori who is my muse and the face of my blog and the owner of all the fabulous makes you see here. I’m a behind the seams kinda gal but you will see my face pop up from time to time. I'm sharing this dress I made last summer but never posted o the blog. I have just gotten back to trying to post regularly, so if you're new to the site, that's me below!


My mother had a love for elephants and collected them, so when I see elephants, it brings back all the fond memories of my mother. So naturally, I started my own little collection of elephants. My elephants are all in the form of jewelry and my latest addition to the family was this quirky silver elephant necklace.


So, when I saw this elephant hand printed Cotton Batik Fabric, I knew I had to have it. And I had the perfect dress pattern in mind which was Simplicity 8636 “ Cynthia Rowley” View A, which is a cute baby-doll dress with a big ruffle on the bottom. I added an additional ruffle, to break up the elephant print a little. Every chance I get to print mix, I take advantage of the opportunity and this was no different. I added a tie-dye print Cotton Fabric from the shibori collection which is also 100% cotton.


I pre-washed my fabric and pressed it as I always do, prior to cutting out the pattern pieces. The only modification I made to this pattern was to add the additional ruffle. I took piece #10 which is the bottom ruffle and cut the required 4 pieces from the main fabric. I folded the pattern under 2 ½ inches to create the shorter additional ruffle and cut out 4 pieces. When I got to the point in the instructions for adding the ruffle, I added the new shorter ruffle first and the original ruffle under that ruffle.

The construction of this dress was easy breezy and will only take a few hours of your time to complete! This pattern would be a great choice for a beginner sewist and a great base pattern for a more advanced sewist to build on. There is a lot of gathering for this project so you may want to consider your plan of attack for your gathering. This fabric is thin so the most commonly used gathering method worked for this project. Sew two rows of loose & long stitches all along the gathering edges, securing with back stitching at the beginning and leaving a long tail at the end, so that you will be able to pull your gathers in place. These are the steps included in the pattern instructions. I had a little fabric left over to create a no-sew head wrap to complete the look.


Thanks for stopping by!


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  • Annette Annette on Mar 23, 2022

    OMG! That is SUPER CUTE on you! I LOVE the elephant Batik material and the Elephant pendant and hair wrap makes the outfit! Gorgeous photo shoot as well! And I totally agree with Liz Weiss' comment above "Love your attitude and style" Except I'd also add "your smile" to that!

  • Jan piner Jan piner on Mar 23, 2022

    You rock it!!!!

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