Simplicity 2215 Cynthia Rowley

Cynthia Rowley instructions are usually pretty easy to read and follow and I think her patterns are quite on trend and usually pretty good for beginners. 
However for me, this pattern has a few issues -  if using the pattern without changes I think the bodice sits too high at the waist and the finished garment measurements listed on the from of the pattern pieces were way, way off - this made up very small. I would suggest that anyone sewing this dress went up substantially when working with the bodice pattern.

You can see from the below pattern picture that the pattern includes a pleated skirt which I changed to a gathered skirt due to the fabric, I wanted to be able to see the dots clearly and felt that pleating would have thrown them off.
In the pattern the pleats for this skirt are uneven (intentionally) which bothered me a little - I like things to line up neatly and the uneven pleats screamed 'LOOK! I missed up my pleats and didn't bother to fix them!'. This pattern has a side zip (invisible) as well as the buttons on the front of the bodice, so the buttons are considered 'fake' which means if you find buttonholes scary, you could just skip them and stitch your buttons through both pieces of the bodice.

This pattern is pretty cute and would be totes adorbs in winter over tights and a long sleeve top as well as a cute summer throw on. It also includes instructions on how to just sew up the bottom of the dress as a skirt and the bodice as a shirt so it is pretty versatile but I wouldn't recommend it to beginners who might struggle with the pattern drafting changes you'll need to make it a truly 'go to' pattern.

My happy client in the end result