October 17, 2012

Butterick 5454 - Thanks Elizabeth!

Butterick 5454 is another dress that I saw on a blogger (Elizabeth of Sewn!)  And thought - Oh, I love that dress and I have a ton of dress lengths of knits - wonder if I can wear that. 

The weekend before retreat I had run to Hancocks to looks for some ponte knits and came home with 2 knits.  They both took a trip through the washer and dryer and then one of them got cut out as 'fake fabric' for the Butterick dress.

Just like the other dress - I worked on faith.  I made very few adjustments  mostly to the back .  I adjusted the sleeves to be short.  These days I prefer short sleeves or sleeveless - because honestly - long sleeves are just too hot.  I raised the front by half and inch.  And I cut the skirt at the biggest size on the pattern - trusting the finished garment measurements printed on it that it would in fact fit my hips without adding more room.   Oh - but I did add length - 6 inches!
This is such a quick dress to make and I sewed it completely on my sewing machine!  Yes - it would have been much, much quicker with the serger and maybe on the 3rd version I'll use the serger. 

After sewing it up - the only changes I had to make were to unpick the back pleats in the skirt by an inch and half - they weren't falling nicely and needed to be shortened.

I think because of how I raised the front neckline, the hem didn't fall evenly at the bottom and I had to have a friend mark the hem - which is why the border print isn't hemmed yet.  I'm going to attempt to figure that out on version #3 - because there will be many, many more.

This dress was comfortable and easy to wear.  It stays overlapped with no fear of anything horrible happening - even when the wind blows. 

One of the best parts of sew camp?  Besides coming home with 2 patterns I feel comfortable sewing over and over?  I gained confidence in my skills and came home feeling pretty and not nearly as big as I thought I was!  Win / Win / Win! 

10 comments :

  1. Love it!! I'm glad "camp" was such a positive for you. You ARE beautiful!!

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  2. Sew camp sounds wonderful> I LOVE your new dress. You are very talented...repeat that after me, because you are

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  3. Yeah!!! I like wraps and used to have several. That one looks comfy too. It sounds like camp was a very good experience.

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  4. This is cute on you. I'm so thrilled that you got two great dress patterns finished at sew camp. But I'm most thrilled to hear that you realize that you're not that big.

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  5. I have the same pattern too! I think i bought it eve. Before i kniw how to use machine.. Yours looks fabulous on you and heyyy u are beautiful and not big at all! But most important is that YOU feel it. must have been a really invigorating camp!

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  6. Win/win/win! I love the pattern on that dress, and it looks great with your boots. You sound happier with your sewing than you have in ages, and that makes me happy for you!

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  7. It sounds like sewing camp was good for you, a great weekend, sewing buddies, fitted patterns, a couple of GREAT dresses that look really good on you and on top of all that a more positive outlook than you've had in a while. A win all round !

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  8. Beautiful dress! Love the fabric.

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