Blue and Gold Dress (Butterick 6590)

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As I've now started working on my second go at this pattern, I realised it was high time I actually posted about the first time I made Butterick 6590*. I made this about a year ago with a remnant of some navy stretch jersey with a gold border print, and I was quite pleased to be able to squeeze this out of it, especially considering there is a slight amount of pattern matching at the waistline.

I went for option A, the short-sleeved, pencil skirted version. After making a mock up, I found I didn't need to make any alterations to the bodice, but opted to narrow the side seams of the pencil skirt slightly, as I prefer the look of a close fitting pencil skirt, and could get away with it in this stretch fabric. It took me a while to work out how I wanted to place the gold columns of the border print - I initially thought I'd put the most saturated part at the hem, moving upwards, but decided to make things difficult for myself and have it the other way around, starting at the pointed waistband, then going down through the skirt pieces.

This did mean that there was no pattern matching to worry about on the bodice, so this could be cut out pretty quickly. As I was using a remnant, I did have less fabric than the pattern calls for - it says to use 1.8m, and I believe my piece was about 1.3m with pattern matching required, so the plain navy back bodice pieces were cut off-grain to compensate for this. The only area I was particularly fussed about with the pattern matching was the very centre front, making sure that line was completely vertical and that there was no break in the shell shape between the waistband piece and the skirt front piece. As there were darts in the skirt, it would have been impossible to match up the waistband and skirt pieces elsewhere, and I don't think it's particularly noticeable at first glance that things aren't lined up entirely. Of course, now I've been staring at these photos for half an hour to write this post, the mismatching seems glaringly obvious, but I'm hoping that this isn't something that most people are going to do.

This particular fabric doesn't appear to fray at all, so I didn't bother with any seam finishings, I just made sure to cut everything out neatly in the first place and that was that. I didn't use a decorative button, I instead opted for a brooch that I think complemented the colours pretty well. And there you have it. I found this pattern nice and stress-free to follow and, especially as I didn't have to finish any seams, it was pretty quick to whip up. I think it's a really flattering shape and I do love the sexiness of the triangle cut out so yeah, I'd consider this one a success.

Stay tuned for my next rendition of this pattern, which will should appear on the blog soon and the 'gram even sooner!