Burda Style For people who sew

Description

I have been working diligently last month (August) on this Butterick 5521, I would say this pattern is not an easy one as it contains many pattern pieces which requires one to match seams and lines perfectly. I think I accomplished the technical aspect of the dress quite well, but the my wrong choice of fabrics and colour combination resulted in a hideous dress and my husband told me to ‘throw it out already!’.

I used a sturdy suiting grade GREY viscose, a leftover sheer YELLOW fabric for the flange which I thought interfacing would be able to toughen it up and a very thin drapey BLUE fabric for the sides. I had an inkling before I started sewing that the different weight of the 3 materials wouldn’t make the dress hold up well but I didn’t listen to the hunch and soldiered on anyway, bad decision! The yellow flange thus had a rippling effect to it and perhaps I think I have cut it on the wrong grain as well due to lack of fabric. The blue on the sides are left to be desired as it looks stretched and distorted due to its pure sheerness despite being a fully lined dress.

What possessed me to mix these colours together really puzzles me as it makes me feel like I should command a Star Trek ship once I put on this dress! Oh yes, I googled ‘Colours that complement grey’ and the colours yellow and blue popped up but perhaps subtler shades of these colours wouldn’t be so bad against the grey. I thought colour blocking dress would be interesting but……..

I do not think I’ll be making another version of this one real soon after this disaster but it was a lesson well learnt, never try to combine fabrics of different weightage together on one dress AND adhere to cutting fabrics on the right grain!

You can read more about my disaster dress here

http://sertyan.blogspot.com/2012/09/butterick-5521-commander-of-star-trek.html

Difficulty

Intermediate

Categories

For

Women

Garment Type

Dress