Butterick 5488

I'm working on the second version of this dress Butterick 5488 .   I bought this pattern shortly during a recent sale. Debbie from Stitches and Seams made a great version of this dress.  Debbie from Stitches and Seams . I love her dress. Her notes about the muslin saved me a lot of time. I started out knowing that I needed to add length. The changes that I made to this pattern:

• added length in 3 areas - 
• front  pattern piece -
• added 5/8" just below the armhole
• 1.5" to waist area
• 2" to hip area
• back pattern piece
• I didn't add any extra lenght under the armhole. I just eased the front to the back.
• added a 2" hem
• pegged the hem by 1/2" on the side seams and the back seam.

I screwed up and turned the pleats into tucks on the first dress. Not quite the look that I wanted and you can see the stitching lines. The print is a lightweight poly that I got from Fabricmart  earlier this year. It turned out really nice. I have worn the dress several times and it is really comfortable.

The second dress is another Fabricmart fabric. It is a rayon knit that feels heavenly. I have a bunch of this fabric left.  I changed this dress by adding tucks to the front instead of pleats.

The tucks were time consuming and a couple of times, I wondered what made me do this when I'm suppose to be sewing simple.  This dress has not been worn because after it was done, I decided that I didn't want to wear as much black this summer. I need to wash it to remove the chalk marks.