Butterick 5814 - The Finished Sewing Dare Dress

Hello Darlings, are you ready to drink some cocktails and ignore our children? At least that's what I'm told you do while wearing silk wiggle dresses. Honestly it sounds like a delightful afternoon.

Go make mommy a martini, shaken not stirred.

I'm hoping Don Draper picks me up and takes me somewhere nice.  I'll ignore his philandering if he's especially charming.  Also he must wear a hat....who am I kidding, call me Don!  If Don is not available I will take September from Fringe, he looks great in a hat.

I need a tall man in a suit to help me walk in these shoes.

Confession time, I bought Butterick 5814 and never expected to actually sew it.  I liked the bodice but thought the drape was odd and anyway a cocktail dress is that last thing I "needed."  Then Gillian dared me to make a sexy dress and all of a sudden I'm buying boning and pulling silk out of the stash.

Now that I've made the dress, I Love It.  The silk lining feels delicious and waist stays are my new best friend.  The Butterick directions on the waist stay was a little vague but gorgeous fabrics explained all my questions.  I'd say this pattern was a nice introduction to boning.  There are only a few pieces to insert and the only problem I had was my silk lining sliding around.  About that drape, it grew on me.  I thought it wouldn't be that flattering but instead it looks lovely

Here's a nice close up of the very pretty gathered bodice and the drape.  Also my cleavage... your welcome. 

Now into photos of the insides of dress. Scandalous!

Waist Stay and inside lining.  I used self fabric for both sides of the sleeves but the rest of the lining is black crepe de chine.

Back zipper

Hem.  I added a little overlocking to the edge, not couture but that's fine by me.

In addition to the fitting changes I talked about in this post,  I took a scant 1/8th off the side seams and about 2" in at the CB waist, which was blended out into nothing over the backside.  I needed the full amount of ease across the hips/derriere, but a lot less ease at my sway back.

One last look cause we're having fun.

Milly feather print silk crepe de chine (Long gone but originally from Gorgeous fabrics)

Black silk crepe de chine lining -  Gorgeous fabrics

Stockings - Pretty Polly Cuban Heel Back Seam Tights - Dollhouse Bettie

Shoes - Nadine Peep Toe Pumps - Shop Ruche

Full flickr set here and if you want to see all my blog posts on this dress click on the Butterick-5814 tag on the post

Still Hand Sewing

Inching ever closer to finishing Butterick 5814/sewing dare.  I took Gertie's advice and hand sewed twill tape onto all the necklines. Concerned about my silk being too light weight for this design I also fused Pam's pro-tricot interfacing onto all the pieces.  This gives the fabric a little more body while retaining the drape, I'd say it behaves like a 4ply silk now.

If I had one bone to pick about the instructions it would be that the boning segment is a little vague. Fortunately I'd bought Gertie's bombshell dress course from craftsy where she did a step by step chapter on inserting spiral steel boning.  I am using spiral steel boning since RTW has taught me that feather weight boning buckles under the weight of my bust.

The basic steps are to....
1. Mark where you want the boning, in the case of butterick 5814 the pattern will tell you where to put it.
2. Then cut the boning to size.  I lucked out here because my boning lengths corresponded with precut lengths offered by corsetmaking.com.  All darts were 6" and the longer back pieces were 8.5".
3. Cut the boning casting to be slightly longer than the boning, about 1/8" on each side.  Sew the vertical sides of the casting to the lining with an edge stitch foot.  Make sure you leave a 5/8" seam allowance on the lining cause you can't sew through spiral steel.  (I accidentally did and had to get a pair of pliers to remove the broken needle point.)
4. Insert boning into the castings and sew the ends closed with a zipper foot.  Ta Daaaa your boning is attached!

Everything else is straight forward,  pleating, sewing, sewing, pleating, hand sew, hand sew, hand sew......hand sew.

Still need to hand sew the hem, the waist stay, hook and eye and probably the zipper seam allowance.  After all that... shoe shopping.

Butterick 5814 - Pattern Changes

This post is entirely devoted to the fitting changes I'm making to Butterick 5814. If you don't think you'll ever make this dress, then no need to read further.  But if you're interested in my changes then buckle up, this is going to be a picture heavy post.

 1. Sleeve Changes.
Gertie blogged about how to fix the sleeves slipping off your shoulders.  I also shaved a 1/4" off the bodice seam and split the sleeves into two pieces.  In addition to all of that about 3/8" was removed from the new center sleeve seam line to make the sleeves snugger around my arm.

To take care of the neckline gaping I made the following changes to the bodice pieces.

1. Left bodice piece
In the muslin I sewed a dart in the narrow end of the piece.  To replicate this in the pattern, you'll need to slash and close that area as if there were a dart there.  First step is to draw a dart the same size and location on the pattern as it was on the muslin. On my pattern it was about 2" and very close to the lower pattern notch.

Next cut one leg of the dart...

and close the dart thereby eliminating the extra length in the neckline.

This does make the curve of the neckline look a little rough, so add some paper to the top and bottom of the piece and smoothed the curve.

2. Right Bodice
One the right bodice I decided to remove the extra length at the inset seam.  The first step to do this was to fold and pin the pleats on the pattern.  Then on the seam line measure in the amount of length you need to remove and draw in a new seam line. On my pattern it was about 3/4".

Next you'll need to put the inset piece on top of the new seam line to make sure they are the same length.  On my pattern they matched up fine.  If they hadn't I probably would have made the inset a little taller to match the new bodice seam.

Since the seam lines match you can draw a new edge and trim off the excess.

The pattern edge will now look like this, which is fine because when you pleat and sew it the fabric will make a nice straight line.

3. Right Bodice Lining.
The right bodice lining is a little trickier since it's not obvious where to remove the excess neckline length. The best way to do this is to pin the pattern pieces together as they would be sewn.  This is the right bodice, inset, and lining all pined together along the seam lines.

When you do this you'll see that the pattern pieces match everywhere except on the side seam.  We'll take the excess length off here so they match up. Use the inset side seam to mark where the new lining side seam should end.

Then unpin everything and trim the lining piece. On my pattern it was again 3/4".

After making all these changes I mocked up some new sleeves and refit the dress.

  The sleeves are no longer sliding around and the neckline, though deep, feels secure.   I've already cut into the real fabric so some fun in process shots to come.

Butterick 5814 First Muslin

Hey, are you game for looking at me in low light with exposed bra straps?  Well then you're in luck because I've got pics of the first muslin for Butterick 5814. 

Nice Smock

I went the extra mile on this muslin since it was my first time doing anything with boning.  There was some plastic boning lying in the stash so I inserted into the muslin as directed.  Also put in a back zipper because skipping this step totally bit me in the ass during sewing disaster month October 2012.  As far as first muslins go this one is pretty good, but does need a little more work.

1. The straps fall off the shoulder at the drop of a hat.  I was messing around with my new tripod and both straps fell off making the entire bodice fall around my waist.  Not something you want to have happen in a real social situation. (Though it might liven up a party.)  Planning on doing the seam trick Gertie did of adding a curved shoulder seam to the sleeve.

2.  Even with the sleeve change pinned out there was still too much gaping of the neckline.  On the right side I'm planned on tucking more of the main bodice piece into the inset.  On the left side I might have to do some sort of hidden dart.  Going to play around with the piece some more to see if there is another solution.

3.  Originally I thought the waist was a bit too big but then remembered to do the "sit down and breath" test.  The waist is perfect when sitting down so it will stay as is.  The skirt is surprisingly perfect with only my normal change of increasing the back dart intake.

Now it's time to get out the scissors, tape and seam ripper and make those changes.

Sewing Dares

I'd never thought I'd say this but Twitter is awesome.   I've recently started following and being followed by a bunch of other sewing ladies.  Nothing is more fun than talking about what each of us is sewing, or drooling over someone's latest garment.
Last night Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow started issuing sewing dares to anyone who asked for one.  I don't have a good follow through on sewing challenges, but Gillian assured me that there would be no judgement if the dare was not met.  See Twitter sewing ladies are cool.  After taking a look-see through my flickr account Gillian issued me the dare of sewing "Something sexy for going out/events. I want to see some Va-va-voom." Ooooo I get to make something fun for my dare, It's On!

After some late night mulling over patterns and stashed fabric I think there is a winner..... Gertie's beautiful retro dress Butterick 5814.

Is this enough Va-va-voom for yah?

Lucky for little old me the stash has an extensive Crepe de Chine collection.  Should I go with the lime green leopard print, or maybe use the skulls and roses print.   In the end there was one print that shouted the loudest.....jewel toned feathers.

Please wipe the drool from your face.

So I'm using stashed fabric, a stashed pattern and getting to try my hand at some boning for the first time!  Clear off the sewing table (dining room table) cause all other projects are on hold, I'm going do this dare!

See the complete list of sewing dares here.

Do you want your own sewing dare?  Tweet Gillian at @gilliancrafts #sewingdares.