I wanted to make a dress to wear out to dinner on Saturday night. I settled on the Trina Turk designer copycat dress, Butterick 5522. My sewing time is narrow these days so I thought I would show how I got (will get) this dress done.
I admit the pattern is marked ‘easy’, and it truly is.
Evening 1: Pattern Alterations
I read on PatternReview.com that the dress is tentlike. So be it. Sacky dresses work on my figure. But, I still wanted to make an FBA. So, on the first night I made a dartless FBA increasing the width by 1 inch (I’m sewing a 14) and the length by two inches.
Evening 2: Cut out fabric and piece sleeves
Easy peasy. I’m using a red poly double knit coupled with a camel wool jersey for the contrast. The even numbers on the pattern are the sleeves and the odd numbers are the contrast. To do the piecing, I just pinned them all together prior to sewing. Hand basting would have been better, but I am lazy.
Evening 3: Sew sleeves, interface edges and hems
Argh. This is my one slow down. I wanted to serge the entire dress. But, when I sat down to sew, I was reminded that the bulb on my Euro Pro serger is blown. It’s the first time it’s needed replacing in about ten years. The machine has to be disassembled to replace the bulb and the bulb I had on hand a few weeks ago when I sat down to do this was too big. I never put the machine back together.
So, I sewed on my sewing machine. I started with a stretch stitch (slight zig zag) but it was SO SLOW. I just threw caution to the wind and sewed with a long straight stitch. The sleeves aren’t going to receive much stress so I’m not worried about the stitches popping.
No photo of this, but I used bias knit interfacing along the hem, neck edge, sleeve edges and shoulder seams. The fabric is fairly stable, but doing this for knits has become habit for me.
I could have just about finished this dress last night. But, I’m hoping to replace the 15w serger bulb today. That will allow me to finish all the raw edges (above). Hopefully, the next post will be the finished dress!
