Blue dress

I added the hook-and-eye to this today, which finished the dress, according to the pattern.  This is Butterick B5745.  I saw a finished example in JoAnn's at one point and made a note of the number with the intention of purchasing it when the pattern went on sale. Apparently, that happened twice because I found a copy already in my pattern drawer when I was placing the new copy there.  That led to organizing my patterns by maker, in addition to clothing type.

The material is a heavier cotton I picked up at a thrift shop (surprisingly, I have not looked at fabric at thrift shops before).  It was a generous amount of fabric so I knew it would be enough for a dress and immediately thought of this pattern when I saw it.  When I got it home, and unfolded it for the wash, I found an IKEA tag on it, and that 3 of the 4 edges were hemmed.  I don't know what it was in IKEA land (sheet? duvet?) but today it's a dress.

It may be difficult to see in this picture, but there are many panels to this dress, and each panel is topstitched.  It might be a bit of busy pattern for so many seams, but I am happy with that part of it.  Before I sewed it, I thought the neckline might be too wide for me; I don't like adjusting my underthings when wearing anything.  I took the neck line piece and doubled it, thinking that would cover up a bit more.  I neglected to adjust for the extra width so that piece sticks out a bit.  The coverage is fine but I'll have to take a tuck or two in the piece to make it lie flat.

I am also not happy with the depth of the back opening.  I could never wear anything like this to work (I know, throw a sweater over it, but sometimes I want to take off the sweater) so I plan to rip out the zipper and add another piece to the back to add some coverage.  Since I already plan to adjust the neck line piece, this will just add another step.  Darn if I didn't put the zipper in with such ease, too!

This pattern has a sleeveless version which might look better with the lower back. I look forward to fixing this one and will post it again when done.