New Project!

[theladyrebecca]

I started sewing again on Sunday! We were chatting during the Colonial Festival about our plans for this weekend's Railroad Days. Originally, I had wanted to wear a bustle dress, since that's my favorite, but as of last Sat, the weather for this Sat was supposed to be 87 degrees and sunny. Way too hot for any of my bustle dresses. (Of course, now that forecast has gone down to 81 and mostly sunny, so maybe I could have done a bustle anyway. Oh well.) So anyway, I decided last weekend that I would try the new teens-era Butterick pattern - the one that looks quite off because her shoulder trim is ridiculously huge, and the waist seam seems wrong. This one. 

So anyway, I've been working bit by bit since Sunday evening on this pattern. I had to go to three different Joanns before I found one with enough of the fabric I wanted, which is that white-on-white 100% cotton dobby stripe from the shirting section, but I did finally find it. (PS - pretty sure Joanns is closing out this fabric, so if you can still find it, you might want to do what I did and buy all 10 yards they had. I've been eyeing it for about a year, but had never pulled the plug on purchasing it, and it was almost too late!) I'm mostly using lace from the stash, which unfortunately isn't insertion, but then again, the pattern also doesn't call for insertion lace. I'm going to see if I can get more of a similar lace so that I can put some on the skirt as well, since otherwise it looks really plain. 

A few notes on this pattern in case anyone wants to try it.

• For one, it's huge. Naturally, I didn't make a full mockup, though I did mock up the paper, which led me to increasing the length of both the bodice and skirt, changing the armseye (it was so far off the shoulder!), and tweaking the neckline a bit. Luckily, it's really the back that is huge, and for some reason, the pattern calls for it to meet edge to edge and close with hooks and eyes. Weird. So mine is now overlapping and closing with buttons, at least down to the waist. I'd say it was about 4-5" too big, and that was with using the size down from what I normally am anyway. So, like, super huge. 
• The skirt unfortunately is also way too big, but it also calls for a weird continuous lap closure thing. Which I didn't want to undo. So now I have a little bit of gathers in the CB of my skirt, which are uneven on either side. Hopefully it's not crazy obvious. The skirt is not as ginormous as the bodice - I'd say maybe 2.5-3" too big. That said, it does seem to me that the skirt is also a bit on the slim side for a white summer dress - I think those usually were less fitted. 
• We already all know that the trim goes way too far off the shoulder. I'm using much narrower lace trim (I think it's about 4-5" instead of 6 or 7"), and it goes over the edge of the shoulder seam by about 1". Then again, I also took the shoulder seam up a couple inches, because it was so far off the shoulder. 
• I'm completely redoing the sleeve on this. A) It's too short, by a long shot. The sleeve should hit just above the elbow. B) It's huge. Like, probably at least a few inches bigger around than my arms (and I usually have to widen a fitted sleeve pattern). It's like a men's t-shirt. I'll hopefully be redrafting new sleeves tomorrow. 
• I'm putting lace around the waist as well. It just looks wrong otherwise. 
• The yardage requirements for this pattern are very overblown. I added 4" of length to the skirt pieces, plus about 1.5" (I think) to the bodice, and though I have not yet cut out the sleeves, everything else has so far used up 2.5 yards of 54" fabric. Pretty sure those sleeves aren't going to take up an extra yard of fabric... 

All that said, I think it's still a relatively quick project, despite all the complications I'm adding to it. If I had more time, it would probably be a fun one to play around with insertion lace on, but alas, mine will have ugly modern lace. I probably don't have time to sew today, but I would like to get the buttons/buttonholes up the back tomorrow. That will leave me all day Friday to do the sleeves and the hem. Everything else is already done!