Me Made Monday, present and accounted for! I’ve been busy making dresses, as I usually am in November. Although, it’s December now, I do have a few makes to catch you all up on. Today I am starting with this one. It’s a Butterick 6582.
By the time I get done with the dresses I make, I find they all have a very similar silhouette: fit and flare, gathered skirt, knee length – basically my dress style in three, two word descriptions. I try and veer away from this particular look, but keep finding myself making another one that looks almost exactly like the last one.
I’d like to say this one is a little different though, look at the neck.
It’s a V-neck with some slight gathering at the shoulder seams. And, its a higher neck than I am used to. The skirt, well, it’s just like all the others. The pattern has it a little different, but my problem is that I never have enough fabric to make these ‘retro’ style skirts as pleated and full as the pattern would have them to be. Width sized, gathered rectangles they usually are for me. I could do something about this, just buy more material!
The dress was not a hard make. Not to say that it didn’t leave me with any trouble though. I actually loved the fit, even with it being a little less snug than I usually go for (I cut a size 12 which measured bigger than usual on this pattern), but there was a ripple/wave in the back zipper. I figured this was because I was pulling the fabric when I put the zip in, so I undid the zipper and tried again. It was exactly the same. A little googling and I came across a ‘sway back’ alteration. This seemed to be the fix but since this dress was already made, I could not slash and paste the pattern pieces, so I did the next best thing. I undid the zipper, and detached the back bodice from the skirt, then took a gradual 2 inch chunk from the back where the bodice would meet the skirt. I then put everything back together, had no zipper wave anymore, but had a strange looking angle from the back side to the back center, of course. My solution to this was to put a belt on it. Problem solved!
I did fold the pattern at the bodice shorten line when I cut this one out, but I think I could have gone with a little more off of it. I haven’t ever had trouble with a wavy zip except for when I cut the bodice opposite the grain and then usually some stabilizing tape at the zipper fixes that. The dress I made after this, one I had made before, had the same sway back problem as well – sigh.
Anyway, the dress is done, I wore it on Saturday – with a sweater – and my weird back seam was probably only noticeable to me. I am still in love with exposed zippers, and I can’t help but make pockets in all the dress I am able to.
I have a feeling you’ve not seen the last of this one. Especially since it also meets my criteria for being a dress that doesn’t have to be lined. Neck and arm facings for the win!! Ha ha. 🙂
Thoughts, comments, or suggestions? Drop them below…
Thanks for stopping by. ❤
Rejoice for the Day 