Butterick 4790 The Walkaway Dress

Butterick has an amazing collection of Retro Patterns, some of which are super easy and great for beginning sewers. I'm not a total novice when it comes to working a sewing machine of course but it has been a while since I've actually followed a pattern. I picked up a really cute turquoise gingham fabric in the clearance section of my local JoAnn Fabrics and trimmed the dress in red bias tape. The project took a little longer than anticipated, not because of the difficulty of the dress but because 1) I got the wrong amount of fabric during my first trip to the store and 2) I also got SINGLE FOLD bias tape instead of DOUBLE FOLD on my first trip. Of course, I realized these two things on two separate occasions and the dress took a total of 3 trips to the fabric store.

 

I'm happy with the way it turned out. It doesn't fit perfectly but I didn't  alter the pattern at all so that's to be expected. I'm going to be starting another walkaway dress very soon and now that I have an understanding of the pattern I'll be able to alter it accordingly. I'd like to shorten the skirt and change the bust and waistline of the dress. Currently the bust incorporates darts for a closer fit but the darts don't work very well with my figure (by figure I mean very small B cup) and I can't quite fill them out. The waist lays a bit low for my short torso and considering the fact that I am only 5 foot 2 the modest knee-length hemline practically covers my whole calf.

 

I'm going to do what I can to make the dress fit a bit better but all in all it'll be a nice summer dress and I learned a lot in the process of making it. Time to prefect the pattern!