Me-Made-May Day 28 - Billie Jean is my lover

I know memorial day was yesterday but I've got something very special on the grill for you. Don't worry, the eyeballs make them extra tasty.  What's that?  Oh I always grill in vintage inspired dresses because it classes up the whole "charring meat with an open flame" thing.

Fire, Good!  Pretty Dress, Goodier!"  Ok enough nonsense, on with a pattern review.

Pattern
Billie Jean Dress from Bluegingerdoll. I bought the PDF version cause I wanted to sew it RIGHT NOW! It will also be available in a printed version which can also be pre-ordered from the etsy shop.  The pattern comes with a fully lined bodice and your choice of a slim pencil skirt or a gathered full skirt. 

Fabrics used
Very light weight cotton shirting purchased from Gorgeous Fabrics some time last year. More stash usage, sweet. Here's a little peek at the insides of my dress.  I had plenty of fabric to self line the bodice and thought cotton would be a lot cooler on a summer dress than some stashed polyester lining.

Pattern changes/alterations
1. I needed to blend three sizes together in the bodice 12/14/16.  The neckline and shoulders are a 12, then the side seam is blended from a 12 into a 16.

2.  Added 1/4" to either side of the upper back princess line seam for little more width in my wide upper back area.

3. On the front neckline I drew a new neckline curve adding about 5/8" to the shoulder area for a little more bra strap coverage.  On the back I raised the entire neckline 5/8".

4.  I thought this fabric was too soft for the pencil shirt option and waist gathered skirts aren't that flattering on me, instead a 4 panel gored skirt was swapped in.  My pattern was borrowed from Simplicity 1880 but they are very simple to draft yourself.  One thing to note is that the front waist measurement of the Billie Jean bodice is larger than the back waist measurement.  If you wanted to do a traditional gored shirt you'd need to make the bodice front/back waist measurements equal to get the side seams to match up. You'd draft 1 gore pattern and cut 4 to make up your entire skirt. Your other option is to keep the bodice as it is and draft 2 gore pattern pieces. The front skirt pattern will be wider at the waist and a back skirt narrower.  Cut 2 back skirt gores and 2 front skirt gores to make up the entire skirt. This is what I did because my figure really is wider on the front than on the back.

Confessions/Advice
1. When putting together the PDF pattern notice that there is some overlap of the images between pages.

Make sure you do not just cut off the margins and align by those edges.  It takes a bit of fudging but you can get everything lined up by matching text or notches.  Also if your margins are this wide you have printed with scaling on. Oops, good thing I checked the 4" square!

2. Instead of a lapped zipper I inserted an invisible zip, because there was a white one in the stash and I'm lazy.

3.  Took one look at how wide the hem sweep was and thought, "Am I going to hand sew this? Oh Hell No!"   Instead used the sewing machine to put in a narrow fold over hem. I regret nothing.

4. When sewing the lining to the main bodice I sewed the neckline, understitched it and then stitched the armholes together.  You can't understitch the whole sleeve seam so I understitch up to the princess line seam on both the front and the back.

Husband Comment
"Hey that's a nice dress!  No don't put a belt on it, it looks better with out it.  Don't put a sweater over it either!"

My Final Thoughts
From putting together the pattern to finished dress took me 7 days. Yowzah! It helped that the only part that needed to be fitted was the bodice and that was almost perfect on the first muslin.  I would agree with the pattern directions to size up if you are between measurements.  My waist is 34" and the size 16 has a 35" waist.  I could nip out a little bit of the ease but found it very comfortable as it is.

Even if the fitting process hadn't been a wiz I'd still LOVE this dress.  It's vintagey without being costumey, it's comfortable, it's oh so pretty. ;)