A Wedding Dress: Butterick 5882

OK, well, it’s not for my wedding…it’s the dress I made to wear to my dear friend C’s wedding!  Had you going there for a sec, didn’t I?

The wondrous Butterick 5882, AKA Gertie done good again.

Sewing this dress wasn’t too difficult.  Due to time constraints, I actually got the majority of it done in only two days.  I was fitting the top on the Friday before the wedding (which was on a Friday, so a week before the wedding and 6 days before we were starting our drive), and had a case of the f*ck its, during which I declared to Mr. 5 that I would not be making this dress…I would have to find something else.  I can be good at psyching myself out like that.

The next morning, I awoke with renewed resolve and ended up getting the dress nearly finished by Sunday night.  Sadly, though, I overfit the bodice and the damn thing was just way too tight.  So easy to do when you have all of those layers involved:  shell fabric, lining, and boning (which I did put into my muslin, so that was not the culprit alone!).  Speaking of fabric, I used a lovely Maggy London rayon/acetate damask from Fabric Mart for the majority of the dress, and a mystery (poly?) satin for the teal contrasting bits.

This mistake led to another 3 or so hours of work as I let out the side seams of the bodice, which required ripping out a bunch of hand stitching, the bodice side seams, much of the waist, the boning over the seam, as well as the top parts of the skirt.  I was not a happy camper.  Also, I later noticed that I had bled on the lining of the dress without realizing it.  That’s some focus right there.  I thought about sharing a photo, but methinks you guys know what a sewing-sized blood stain looks like.

After all of that, it was still a smidge tight.  Maybe more than a little…Mr. 5 helped me by taking these photos today and in one of them was a heaping helping of back fat (which can sort of be seen in the photo above).  At least it wasn’t back cleavage, right?  I’ll spare you that photo and show you this instead:

I cut a straight 14 in this, and really should’ve included at least a 1/2″ or a full 1″ FBA.  Luckily, my most supportive bra (obtained last November) kept things in place instead of smooshing them, and the straps corresponded with the straps of the dress.

If I had to choose, the shelf bust feature was probably the most trying part, and even that was pretty self explanatory.  I did managed to ignore all of the arrows and directions and stitched the pleats going in the wrong direction (up instead of down), but I think it still worked out pretty well.  I also wanted to tie the shelf bust/strap color elsewhere in the dress, so I drafted my own pleated sash.

That being said, I’m not sure what I think about the strap that holds up the dress.  It’s entirely cut on the bias, so I am pretty certain it will stretch with time.  I thought about using a bias strip just around the bust and then cutting some fabric on the grain for the rest of the strap, but time constraints got in the way.  Plus, I wasn’t sure how I felt about breaking up the continuous line of the strap.  Also, I ended up wearing the strap facing outward (slipstitched), toward the sides, rather than in, like the pattern indicated.

And lastly, the wonderful beauty of a full, twirly, whirly skirt:

And…because I’m a freak, here’s a random animated gif of a couple of photos taken at the wedding, which was quite the breezy day!:

More to come soon on the nuptials of C and S, and our mini vacation to North Carolina and back!