More Curtain Clothes! (Butterick B5882 Dress)

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Ardent followers of my blog, if they so exist, may have noticed that I promised a matching dress to my curtain coat a short while back. Well, I thought it was only a short while, but it turns out it was actually close to five months ago that I posted that. Oops. But now that long, arduous wait is over, and I can finally reveal round two of my adventure into making clothes out of curtains a la Maria Von Trapp.

The pattern I used was Butterick B5882*, a fabulous 1950's style pleated shelf bust dress with full skirt, designed by Gertie. It was a bit of a tight squeeze fitting this and the coat fabric onto what I'd guess was 6m of fabric, but I managed it without having to compromise too much. My priority was to make sure the branches all appeared to be running pretty much vertically, and so as long as this was the case, I was less fussed about whether everything was exactly on grain.

I used the same fabric for the lining as for the contrast, which was a silky gold crepe back satin* I'd picked up a while ago and by total fluke happened to be pretty much the exact same shade of gold as the leaves embroidered on the outer fabric.

The instructions were all easy to follow and for the most part, I didn't find it too difficult to sew up (though I've probably made about a dozen boned bodices by now, so I can't guarantee the experience would be the same if you were a beginner to the area). I did find the pleated 'bra' cups a right pain though. Choosing a slippery, delicate fabric likely didn't help the matter at all, but it probably took me 2-3 hours to get these curved pleats neatly pinned in place for pressing, and I was not a happy bunny during this experience.

In terms of fit, I did find I needed to take it in quite a lot at the centre back seam to get it something more hourglass shaped - without this, it's actually quite rectangular. This still wasn't quite enough to make it the shape I wanted (I'd already boned the side seams and didn't feel like unpicking, but this would have helped define the shape a little more) and I do find the silhouette to be more boxy than anticipated. I'm also not overly convinced by the shelf bust - as the "shelf" starts partway up the bust rather than immediately below it, it makes the bust look smaller than it actually is, which I find confusing and not particularly flattering.

All those issues aside though, I do actually really like this dress, and I'm especially loving how it looks with the matching coat (which also helps cover up some of the issues I was complaining about). If I were to make this again, I'd definitely make sure to alter the bodice pattern slightly to be a more figure-confirming shape, and maybe also move the shelf down to be fully under-bust. But the dress has great movement in this heavyweight woven fabric, and it feels really luxurious (and warm) to wear, so it's definitely still going to get a lot of use.

And that's all I've got for you this time. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think of the dress!