A Floral Beginning/ Butterick B5919

Greetings, friends and sewers!

I'm Amy, and this is my sewing blog. Thanks for stopping by! This post is about the making of B5919. I chose this pattern for its vintage feel & fun embellishments (open back- check! giant bow- check!). I made up this dress as a project for a sewing class I've been taking, and so cannot take full credit for the pattern alterations we made (I had a seasoned designer guiding my hand). Also, this pattern is labeled 'easy' but I did not find it to be. Obviously, 'easy' is relative to your sewing level, and this was the most advanced garment I've made yet. My biggest struggle was probably with the silk lining I used- very slippery & hard to get just right. I also had no idea how much hand sewing goes into attaching a lining to a garment, and I seem to enjoy hand sewing about as much as I enjoy bathing my cat. Buuuut, my sewing skills improved tremendously as a result of this project, and I don't think sewing a dress of similar difficulty will be as daunting a task in the future.

After making a very unattractive muslin for this dress, my teacher and I decided the bodice would need to be brought in. We re-drafted most of the bodice pieces to fit my frame better. Mainly we removed fabric both in the center front bodice and along the sides of both the front and back. Once this was done I was free to cut and sew up the real dress and lining. It did not escape me that I basically cut and sewed this same dress 3 times. Once for the muslin, once for the real fabric, and once for the lining. For the outer fabric I chose a cotton printed called "Greenwich" by Alexander Henry. I don't believe it's available any longer. I bought this fabric from http://www.theneedleshop.net/ . For the liner I chose a fuschia silk from Joann's shhhh. Once I had the fabrics chosen and the pattern altered, I began re-making the dress.

As I mentioned previously, there was a whole lot of hand sewing to be done as I attached the lining to the outer garment. This seemed to take me weeks! I would go to my sewing class with my dress, sewing supplies, and a steely-eyed determination. "What are we working on today?" my teacher would ask. I'd sigh and say, "The same thing we were working on last week." I kept my nose to the grindstone and sew sew seweddd my little hands away until this dress resembled a garment I might one day wear in a public setting.

After attaching the lining, setting and sewing the zipper, sewing and re-sewing the buttons for perfect placement, it was time to try this thing on. I was ready. I wiggled into the dress and realized almost immediately it no longer fit me in the snug way we had designed it to. It took me so very long to make this dress (about 3 1/2 months) that due to dietary changes I made and a more intense summer workout regime I lost an inch around my waist and hips. This dress needed to be brought in again. At this point, I was so frustrated with this project that the thought of undoing all the careful hand-stitching I had spent weeks on in order to bring the dress in made me want to deposit the dress in a giant shredder rather than work on it again. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings, as Faulkner would say. Instead I asked my teacher what the easiest and fastest way to bring in the dress would be. We decided to undo and re-set the zipper an inch further in. This way I undid some, but not all, of the hand-sewing I had completed. With the zipper an inch further in, we re-achieved most of the snug fit I had wanted, but not all. If I really fit this to my liking, I'd probably bring in the skirt along the sides again and possibly make the front and back skirt darts deeper to achieve a smaller waist.

Once the zipper was re-set, I breathed a great sigh of relief and declared this project "finished" although there was much more I could have done to this in the pursuit of perfection. I also made the bow which is supposed to go on the back, and which was initially one of the main reasons I wanted to make this dress, but ultimately decided to leave it off. Perhaps if I had used a plain colored fabric the bow would look good, but with this patterned fabric I felt like it was too much. In these pictures you'll notice I'm wearing a belt, which was to help bring the dress closer to my waist.

All pictures of me were taken by my boyfriend, Keith (what a guy!), in the beautiful Garfield Park Conservatory and surrounding park. Detail pictures were taken by yours truly.

Until next time!

xoxo,

Amy