After a summer of sewing for other people and for our new home, I decided it was time to make a dress for myself. I love gingham and I thought that Butterick B6446, a dress with a large sash tied in a bow in the front, would be the perfect match for this lovely light blue gingham fabric that I bought recently at the Fabric Outlet in San Francisco.
I made view B. I made a muslin first and I am really glad I did because I made some enhancements to the fit. I shortened the left panel of the bodice, lengthened the bodice and added curve to the bodice sides. The muslin dress ensured fit before I cut the gingham and began construction. The result is a dress that fits me really well and is very comfortable. An added bonus to making a muslin is that I now I have fabric pattern pieces that I can use to make this dress again and they will hold up well for years. Making the muslin took time and thankfully I really enjoyed the process and the end result.
I lined the entire dress with a white cotton, also from the Fabric Outlet. I followed the instructions to line the bodice. This skirt is unlined, however it seemed odd to line just the bodice and not the skirt. So I matched the pattern for the skirt lining exactly to that for gingham skirt. Other sewists used the skirt pattern for view A (no pleats in the skirt of this version) to cut the skirt lining. I may try this when I make this dress again. In order to perfectly match the gingham at back zipper, I sewed in the zipper in by hand using a prickstitch.
At the same time that I was making this dress, I bought a new camera! Thanks to Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow I learned that some sewing bloggers actually take their own pictures! I don’t know why this was such an “ah ha” moment for me, but it was. So I decided one day to play around with the camera and take a few pictures of my new dress. Gillian has tons of great information on photography for sewists. Visit her blog posts on photography at Better Pictures Project.
It was a beautiful day yesterday, perfect for visiting a local park.
This is a great dress pattern and one I will definitely make again. But now it is time to focus on my next project.
Thank you for visiting my blog!
Jolirose 
Wow! What a beautiful dress and terrific fit! I really enjoyed your pictures and the information on putting your zipper in by hand so that your plaid matched-up perfectly! Great article!
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Thanks! This was the first time I’ve ever put a zipper in by hand and I’m really pleased with the results. Thanks for your feedback and thanks for stopping by!
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It looks great, the fit is brilliant and you can tell you have lined it because it sits beautifully.
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Thank you so much, Emma!
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Your modifications definitely paid off—it fits like a glove! What resource(s) did you use to achieve such a good fit?
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Hi Caitlyn – thank you so much for visiting my blog and for your kind words! Susan Khalje has a great class on Craftsy on Sewing the Couture Dress which details all aspects of making a dress. I used her method for making a muslin, and I highly recommend her method because you get muslin pattern pieces at the end, plus a well-fitting garment. I’ve also used Melissa Watson’s (McCall’s Palmer Pletsch) tissue-fitting method with good results, but with this method you make changes to the paper pattern. The paper pattern has a limited useful lifetime. I hope this helps! Thanks again for visiting!
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I’m so happy you enjoyed the Better Pictures Project! It really helped me figure out how to enjoy taking pictures, and I’m glad it helped you too! 🙂
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