I'm so excited to be participating in #SewMyStyle2018, hosted by Jessica Lorraine. The January pattern is the Sunny Dress from Friday Pattern Co. I have finished taping the PDF and altering it for my size. If I were rating this pattern, so far I'd only be able to give it 2.5 or 3 out of 5. I'm not loving it.
First of all, sizing. It seems inclusive as it goes up to XXL, but that XXL size is much smaller than what I would expect. To be fair, this is a knit pattern, and how much negative ease is in the pattern, if any, differs per designer. The description of this is "body skimming without being too tight," but based on my measurements and the garment measurement, that would not have been the case. It would have been tight enough on my to be more along the lines of lumpy sausage! Not what I feel beautiful in. 
Second, the sizing chart isn't included in the PDF instructions. I had to go back to the website to check for sizing. Not world ending, but kind of an oversight. There was also not a legend the showed the cutting line styles for each size. Again, not huge, but it's handy to have that.
Taping went well. Marks were clear, and it all lined up nicely and was easy to cut and tape.
I'll talk more about the alterations I made in a second, but after I had it all cut out, I noticed a drafting issue on the bottom of the back piece. Nothing huge at all, but the angle where the hem and back meet was incorrect. If sewed as drafted, there would be a point in the back. Minor, but, IMO, shows an oversight. Below, you can see the pencil line I've added to remove the point. The hem line need to be at 90 degrees from the fold line and them smooth into the hem line.
There was a second mistake I noticed on the XXL size. The XXL line alternates a long dash line and shorter one. Halfway through the armhole, the line switches to the same dash as the XL line and continues in that dash through to the neck line. The line itself is correct, it simply uses the wrong dash pattern for a while. Not a huge thing, but I had a moment of , "Oh No!" when I was cutting because I thought I'd cut the wrong size out for a minute.
For the alterations, I basically redrafted the sides. I kept to the XXL size along the armholes and neckline, but from the underarm point down, it's a new line.
To find this line, I took my waist and hip measurements, divided them by four. Then, I measured from the fold line out toward the side seam and put a mark where that measurement fell. I did this on both the front and back piece and then measured the difference back to the XXL line. Adding the differences together, then dividing by two gave me the amount out from line to make my new line (the green line in the picture).
For example: my waist is 40 and I wanted a little looseness in it, so I did 10 1/2" out from the fold line. Measuring from that back to the XXL line, the front was a difference of 3/4" and the back was 1 1/4". That makes the total difference 2", so, dividing that by 2 the amount I needed to increase both the front and back at the waist was 1". I repeated the process for my hips, which was much less (I'm apple shaped) at only 13/16" needed on both pieces.
I made marks away from the line at those distances, on the back piece only, and then used a french curve to make a smooth line. After that, I simply flipped the back piece onto the front, keeping the underarm point matching and the fold line parallel. That allowed me trace the line from the back to the front.
By keeping the underarm point the same, I didn't have to alter the sleeves at all. I probably needed more room in the bust, but not having to adjust the sleeves is worth a little tightness.
At the hem, just a note, when widening the skirt, make sure to mark the new hem point straight out from the side. If you follow the hem up to the new side line it makes it shorter, and IMO, this dress doesn't need to be any shorter!
The shoulder seams are a different angle than I'm used to seeing, so I'm thinking about doing a wearable muslin to start with, especially, as I've basically redrafted the sides.
Pattern rating so far: 3/5
