Butterick 5600 Done

This dress has been done for awhile...actually before my two week blogging hiatus.  It has been hanging waiting for all of the meetings at my job to be finished so that it can be worn...because it definitely does not fit into the "professional" look necessary for those meetings.

I am busting out all of my floral dresses this week as an antidote to all the black, black/white, navy and gray that I've worn for the last month.  This will be one of the first ones I wear.  However, even tho' I have a completed dress, I would call this pattern a fail and I'm not sure that it's the pattern's fault.  Let's tell the truth here...I must of been delusional when I thought I would be able to make the belt portion of this dress work for me.  I have no discernable waistline on the front of me...babies, age, menopause and a refusal to work out have robbed me of a front waistline...and the only reason I appear to have one in the back is because I've been blessed with the family booty...not all female members of my family have...

So after much fussing with...adding and removing it from the fabric...making a sash and tying it a multitude of ways...my DD echoed what I was thinking when she said I was fighting a losing battle.  Here is my version of the Butterick 5600 dress styled two different ways:

without the sash

with the sash & a tank top beneath the dress

Some stats:

Fabric:
Blue linen border print from Elliot Berman

Notions:
8 blue buttons from GStreet Fabrics in Rockville
White rayon ambiance lining
scraps of pro-weft interfacing from Pams
blue rayon hem tape

I discussed the pattern alterations in this post.  The changes I made to the construction of this dress are:

1.  I underlined all of the dress pieces with lining fabric by basting the fabric and lining pieces together and then serging them.  The linen is a little lightweight and see-through.  Adding the lining gave the finished dress a little heft and eliminated any sheerness.

2.  I omitted the tabs on the sleeves.  To make them work I had to make the sleeves tighter and I liked the looseness of the sleeves.  Which came about because I enlarged the bicep area of the sleeve quite a bit and then I cut the sleeve on the bias thus causing the sleeve hem to have a little more give. 

3.  The band at the neckline was cut from the darker end of the border print.  The original dress also had tabs cut from the darker border but as noted above they weren't working for me so I left them off.

4.  Without a belt this is just a short sleeve button front dress, however, the pattern from the fabric is what makes this special in my eyes.  With the sash, it looks something like the pattern but not exactly.

So while I didn't add all of the components of the dress that appealed to me most, I did end up with a wearable dress...and I guess that's something!  *LOL*

A few more pictures:

the back

a close-up of my shoes

(aren't they fabulous!)

and with The Little Prince

...as always, more later!