LBD in a day!

This Sunday I woke up raring to start work on a beautiful vintage-style commission mock-up, only to discover I picked up the wrong pattern from library! Not wanting to waste 'the zone' my eye rested upon the pattern sat on my desk. It had been a toss-up between this and the shirt dress when I was contemplating what to make over the Easter break. The nautical dress had won out because I had specific fabric in mind for this one, but now seemed a good time to plunge into the Butterick B5794.

I decided to go for the knee-length, straight hem version with the flounce sleeves and cross-over bodice.The pattern has the option to do the dress with a very gentle high-low hem, but I'm fairly sure that would just have come out looking like an uneven hem! Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not a fan.

I haven't done a huge amount of work with stretchy knit fabrics as I find them harder to control than woven fabric, but you only learn by trying don't you? As a result, there's not a lot of stretch fabrics in my stash to choose from that isn't almost suimsuit fabric. In the end I went with a plain black stretch short-nap velour.  Overall it wasn't too much of a problem. I had to stitch slowly to avoid any slipped stitches, but it certainly wasn't the worst fabric to do this with.

The pattern was nicely designed and easy to put together - I was done within the day and even managed to cook a roast chicken dinner in-between!

The plus size lady on the packet was quite amply proportioned in the chest-area if you catch my drift, so I modified the pattern a little to accommodate my less fulsome bust.

The pattern suggests you either double-stitch or overlock most of the seams. I chose to double-stitch because the fabric really didn't fray, but overlocking would have worked well too.

The sleeves are a lovely shape, and there's plenty of room in the armscye, which is a pleasant change from a lot of non plus-size patterns!

I'm chuffed to bits with the resulting dress - it's comfortable and looks great!