Butterick 5181 -- I Wish It Had Worked For Me

After a long six weeks of no sewing at all, I finally got to my sewing room this week.  The first thing I did was make two pairs of pants for my youngest son, since I had already converted most of last year's pants into shorts for the summer.

After that, though, I had grand plans to make myself a new dress.  I got some gorgeous rayon prints a while back and I was really looking forward to it.

I'll apologize in advance for the  smudgey pictures.  I didn't realize my camera lens had a big ole fingerprint on it until I took the dress off the dressform and put it away.

Anyway, I picked this Butterick, since I though it looked so pretty and summery, and I made View A.  Now, the last couple of Butterick's I made fit pretty much right out of the envelope, so I decided to take a chance on this one.  Bad Idea.

I cut the size 8 which perfectly matches my waist and hip measurement, but I expected the bust to be a little big, since my bust measure is smaller than the size 8.  What I didn't expect was a tent.

The pattern actually went together really nicely.  Instructions were good.  Notches matched up.  But the size 8 was simply too big.  All over.  And the front was cut so low that it was completely unwearable without something underneath.  The slit ends well below the center front piece of my bra.  Yikes!

  I took up 1 1/4 inches on both the front and back at the shoulder seams.  And I took in 3/4 inch at each side on both the fronts and the backs and on the underbust piece.  I don't know what to say except that I thought I'd cut the wrong size at first.  I didn't.  I checked.

I recognize some of this might be due to the fabric -- everyone knows that rayon stretches.  But not this much.

This is what it looks like after I fixed it.  It actually doesn't look that bad on the dressform.  On me, it  looks kind of boxy and somewhat dowdy.  Or a maternity dress.  Not really the look I was shooting for.

I think if I took the waist in about 3-4 more inches (that's right! not a typo) it would look more like what's on the envelope.  But frankly, I don't really have the patience for that much alteration.  I've cut a new bodice and I'll be ripping off the skirt to use with it.

I admit, I'm a little bummed out.  After all this waiting to get me some sewing time, a wadder was not the ideal way to get back in the saddle.  But I'm not giving up.  I'm determined to get a dress out of this pretty fabric yet!