Butterick 6222 - Done

I seem to be on an every other month blogging schedule. Ergh. I really don't like that. I miss blogging. I miss you all.

But back to the post at hand. Here's a dress I finished a couple of weeks ago. In order to get some photos of me in it, I resorted to work bathroom selfies. I'm so classy that way. I should sneak in my tripod. The lighting is awesome in here.

The pattern is Butterick 6222 by Connie Crawford. I'm into swingy dresses at the moment and I've always had a sweet spot for ruffles so this was a no-brainer buy during one of the Club BMV sales. I can leave Connie Crawford herself (I've met her) but I have to admit to the irony of actually liking a number of her Butterick patterns. Well, the styles anyway. I get irked at the actual pattern sheets since there's no layout of the pattern pieces. I love those layouts (both for studying shapes and for knowing which pieces I need to cut from the tissue) and miss them tremendously in her patterns. Butterick, I hope you're paying attention.

The pattern calls for wovens but I went rogue and used an ITY knit from either Fabric.com or Fabricmart. They both blend together at this point. Ha.

This is one of those non-numerically sized patterns. In other words, S-M-L-XL-XXL-3X-4X, etc. Another thing I'm not fond of with the CC patterns which are sized thus. Plus, the smaller range is in one envelope and the larger in another. I always opt for the smaller range in CC since I need that sizing for my upper body. For this dress, I blended from the M in the upper areas to the L/XL below. I probably could've gone just to the L below but a little more swing in the skirt wasn't going to be a bad thing so I erred on the side of more. It worked out fine, especially since I used a knit.

There's enough ease in my dress using this blended sizing to work for a woven if I ever decide to go that route. But I doubt I will. I'm a wash and wear girl. Ain't got no time for ironing before work. :-) Using a knit, though, added some weight/drag and made the neckline lower than I'm comfortable wearing in the office (or out of it) without a cami so a cami underneath will be the way I'll wear it. (I made this cami years ago from Ressy's Powerdry knit when my coverstitch machine was new. Does anyone remember that? It's still going strong. And I think I may even have more in the stash somewhere.) There are side bust darts since it's for a woven and they hit me at the exact right place. I might have to do a slight FBA in a woven, but maybe not. I'll probably never know. ;-)

I edgestitched the diagonal seams, front and back, to define them more. It shows up better in real life.

I also omitted the neckline facings and just turned and topstitched, running the stitching down the seam which joins the two front bodice pieces. Kind of a faux wrap effect. I actually was going to go with the facings but they didn't fit properly. I'm not sure yet if it was me, the fabric, or the pattern, and I haven't gone back to check, so just make a mental note for yourself to check if you make this dress.

There's a LOT of hemming on this dress between the circular skirt and the circular overskirrt/ruffle. I just sat myself in front of the TV with glass head pins and pinned about every 2 inches, eyeballing about 1/2" for the ruffle and 5/8" for the skirt. After pinning, I took the pieces to the ironing board and pressed the hems into place and then topstitched.

A little twirl action. This dress has lots of movement and it's fun to wear.

Trust  me, you're glad I cropped out my face on that one. What WAS I doing with my eyes?

And a 3/4 view, where you can see that I forgot to add a loop for my ID card. I was so mad at myself for the lapse but there was no way I was going back to unpick overlocking and topstitching. So I hook the card onto the ruffle, and it ends up sliding down by the end of the day, where it is in this photo. Maybe I'll add a loop under the ruffle. It's not attached in the side seam so this should actually be pretty easy to do. We'll see how much it bugs me without it.

Final verdict: I love my dress. It's comfortable. It's flattering. And it was an easy sew. I'd recommend the pattern. The worst part was cutting the flouncy pieces since they're so wide and I used slippery ITY, and then hemming it all. Nothing really hard, just more on the tedious side of things. Which reminds me of one thing I did hate about the pattern. The pieces for the front skirt and ruffle are actually just one piece for the skirt with a separate cutting line for the ruffle. I wish they were separate pieces because if I ever do make this again, I'll have to tape those pieces back together to cut the front skirt again. I did make alignment marks, but still.

I'd say that I'll see you in another couple of months, but I actually have a post in the works on McVoguerick pattern ease to address some conversations I've seen and/or participated in on Pattern Review. The Big 3 aren't undeserving of some criticism but sizing and ease are not one of the things they do wrong. It's Us, not Them, and I'll speak to that soon.