Butterick 5814: Complete!

Ok, I'm in love. THIS DRESS IS LIKE MY DREAM. The wedding was this Saturday, and I finished the dress Wednesday. Like fully finished, hook and eyes, three narrow hems for outer, interlining and lining, and a waist stay. I usually would leave those kinds of those kinds of things until the the last minute, so progress! 

I am thrilled with how the pattern alterations came out. The bodice fits like a glove, after I fixed some minor problems with the front right drape. There was too much fabric and it was pooling by the waistline and the side seam. I had to take the skirt off and undo the side seam a bit and sew the extra fabric in the seam.

 That was the most stressful part. It was coming out perfectly and then I went to try it on after I put the invisible zipper in and EEK! But with the helping hands of a friend, she was able to pin the excess fabric for me while I was wearing the dress. The problem was solved easily after that. Not sure why it didn't show up in the muslin stage, must be the difference in the drape of the fabric. 

The fabric for this dress is a Liberty of London silk, fully underlined and lined. The bodice is underlined with a drapey rayon. It was the only fabric I found that still let the bodice have the drape it needed. The pleated circle skirt is underlined with a silk faille. It gives it body like a taffeta would but without all that taffeta noise. The dress is fully lined with rayon bemberg in a coordinating blue. 

The skirt is my first official pattern draft! Its a basic circle skirt and then you make the waist bigger so it can be pleated. And of course it has pockets! I will do do another post on this if you guys are interested.

The wedding was really fun, my hubby was an usher in it, and we accidentally matched! His tie was the perfect match to the blue in the fabric. I can't wait for another chance to wear this dress! 

Butterick 5814- Making the Bodice

I'm in the mood for couture, darlings! It has been such a long time since I have made a project, taken my time and done anything really special. I have a wedding coming up this month, and with this Liberty silk from my stash it was the perfect opportunity to make something fabulous.

I bought this fabric from Fabric.com, months ago, when it was on sale, and I used something like an extra 15% off it, so I snatched up four yards. Plus, I used ebates so I got 3% back!  I love hydrangeas, and I thought it was the most dreamy print ever. I was expecting the Liberty tana lawn magic to be translated into silk magic, but it is only a regular silk. It's not especially dreamy like Liberty cotton. Oh well, I'm still crazy for the print. 

I've been searching the internets for the perfect pattern for this fabric, nothing was the right floatyness, or the right style or whatever. This wedding is fast approaching so I decided to muslin the bodice of Butterick 5814, a pattern by Gertie. I like the bodice, but the skirt is not what I was picturing so I have to think of something to do for that. 

I started with the size 18 for the bodice, and just made it just like the pattern, expecting scary results. Woah that baby is low, like REALLY LOW. Not suitable for anytime. But other than that, the fit is ok. The sleeves are a little tight on my giant guns, and my bra straps show in the front. 

The first thing i did was to raise the front pieces so the neckline would be about 3" higher. Then I did a 1" FBA. But I didn't want a bust dart, so I would stick to the original look. My pattern looks a little crazy in the end but I swear it works. 

I cut the silk out backed with a roll of unprinted newspaper. Cutting through the paper and the silk helps it from wiggling all over the place. The silk doesn't have enough body to drape on it's own so I knew I had to add underlining. It was a bit of a debate of what fabric to use. Silk organza was too still, just plain muslin wasn't quite right either and then I remembered about rayon! Fabricland has plain white rayon, which had the perfect amount of body and is something like $7 a yard, score! I hand basted all of the bodice pieces to the rayon pieces. I also stitched twill tape to the neckline pieces, like Gertie demonstrated on her blog. 

After I was done with all the hand stitching, the actual machine sewing came together quickly. I pinned it to my dressform to have a look. Still have some hand-sewing to do, and then I can move on to the skirt. I've already drafted it, and will explain in another post. 

DKNY Vogue 1448

Woah summer has just flown by. I missed the whole month of August on here! Well I've still been sewing, just haven't got a chance to photograph anything. 

So I'm back with something a little crazy. I got this BRIGHT rayon from Fabricland, it was only 8.99 a yard. I scooped it up as soon as it came into the store, that's the benefit of working in a fabric store. I rarely pick out fabric with no plan, so I was flipping through the vogue book for ideas and I saw 1448, which was something a little different for me. Of course my fabric choice would turn it into a Carmen Miranda style dress. 

                       

                           

I made a muslin of the bodice, and obviously I needed to do an FBA. But uh oh there is no dart. I could have added a dart, but I wanted it to look like the original. All the cool kids can go around with no darts, so that's what I wanted to do! I cut and slashed and added a third pleat to accommodate the excess. Now I can be cool with no darts. The only other thing it needed was a little tack to keep the wrap together. 

The bodice is lined, I couldn't find a color that was right for the yellow so I went with white. My go-to lining is Robert Kaufman Savannah. Omg its the lightest softest cotton, and perfect for lining. It's only like 6.99 a yard or something. 

The skirt is the most fun. It is three layers of skirt on the front and the back, all with a narrow hem. I am very thankful for the Bernina narrow hem foot, which I finally mastered. It has these pockets in the front, which don't even fit a phone, so they are kind useless. 

PLEASE NOTE: I found a mistake in the pattern, The front peplum piece 6 should say cut 2 not cut 1. GRRR. I didn't figure that out until I was piecing the skirt together. AND I WAS OUT OF FABRIC. If I didn't have to go to work that day, and knew we had more of the fabric, I would have been in trouble. (I have emailed Vogue about the mistake and they said they are fixing it in future patterns.) 

It was fun to make something a little more complicated than the average dress. It's a fun dress to go out to dinner in, and I wore it a lot on my trip to Italy this summer.