Butterick 5347

...or why I hate invisible zippers!

No seriously, I like the dress! The hardest part was inserting the blankety-blank zipper and I know that was entirely operator error!

When this dress first appeared on Butterick's website, I knew I wanted to make it. I liked the clean simple lines...the fact that it would work well for summer yet be professional enough for my office...and being a girl who likes a little bling...just a little...I could see one amazing button at the neckline of the dress.

I decided to use View A for this version because I preferred the rounded neckline over the v-neckline. I also think this dress will make a great jumper for fall. Construct it out of a tropical wool or a wool crepe, add a lining and wear it with a turtleneck and boots and it will be awesome! So even though it is a little too distinctive to make again for a summer dress...I will try to fit a version of it into my fall/winter sewing.

Now originally I planned to make the dress from this yellow paisley print. And that was my plan until I laid the fabric on the cutting table and realized that I had purchased just 2 yards of 45" wide fabric...ummmm, it wasn't happening. I CAN NOT get a dress out of 2 yards of 45" fabric. 2 yards of 60" fabric - YES! The other...no way! So what to do? Since I had abandoned the idea of a third B4980 jacket in the yellow linen...I used that instead.

Some stats:

Fabric:

2.5 yards of yellow linen

2 yards of Ambience lining

Notions:

3 yards of beige hem tape

22" invisible zipper

Construction Changes:

*The hem on the original dress is pegged. While this is a very slimming look, I know that I look better in an A-line skirt. So I extended the side seams from the waistline adding 2" to both the front and back pattern pieces.

*I also added a lining. It was added after I tried the dress on and realized that I could see through the linen. I made new pattern pieces for the lining and sewed it to the facings and then hand stitched it down to the zipper.

*Added an invisible zipper instead of a center back zipper like the instructions say to do.

That was it. This is a pretty easy sew. When I looked up this pattern on PR, I found several examples but what struck me was that someone said they didn't add a button, they left it alone and wore the top of the dress with different pins. That really stuck with me because I love pins and have quite a few of them. I loved them pre-Michelle Obama...especially love them now!

So a few examples of the different pins that I can wear with this dress:

Pearl view

Green floral

More pics of other choices are in my Flickr album!

This weekend I finished up two more pieces of the Gelato Collection. I still have three more to go. I just refuse to not use the yellow paisley fabric...so it will become a straight lined skirt. To me it seems to be taking forever to finish this collection especially since I know what I want to work on next!

As always...more later!