Stone & Brown Butterick 5147

I like this dress' silhouette.  I like how it's a great staple, how it can be made up in various fabrics and that simple embellishments can give it a new twist. Somewhere in my travels through the internet, I saw a dress like this and I knew that I could make my own using Butterick 5147. This is my fourth version and I have version five already planned...I'm sure that there will be even more in the future. 

Some stats:
Fabric ~
St. John ponte knit purchased earlier this year

Notions ~
22" stone invisible zipper
brown embroidery floss

Construction Techniques
Instead of cutting the front pattern piece on the fold, I added a 5/8" seam allowance and sewed the two front pieces together.  I wanted a front seam for embellishment purposes. 

I hand stitched around the back & front neckline and down the front of the dress using brown embroidery floss. To make sure that the stitching was relatively straight, I added scotch tape down the center front seam to use as stitching lines. I also added an inch strip of lightweight fusible interfacing down the back of the center front seam to insure that the seam line and fabric was stable.

Since I didn't line the dress, I simply pressed down a 5/8" seam allowance at the neckline and the armholes. I pressed stitch witchery into the seam allowance to stabilize them and used a twin needle to stitch the armholes flat. I also used twin needle stitching for the dress' hemline.

I got a lot of bang for the buck from this very easy sew. It took about 4 hours from cut to finish ~ even with the hand stitching! I definitely see more of these in my future.

A few more pics...

Dress front

Dress with Butterick 6002 jacket

Dress with Burda 8869 cardigan

Dress & Cardigan back

Piece number five for The City in Winter Collection is done.  This was an unexpected piece that I added but since it works with both toppers, I'm glad that I did include it.

...as always more later!