Butterick 6556 Dress Sewing Pattern Review

The Butterick 6556 dress has been on my radar of patterns I'd probably like to sew for some time now, so when it was included with issue 70 of Love Sewing magazine I took it as a sign that it was meant to be and snapped up a copy. I had some perfectly suited fabric in my stash, so it quickly hopped to the top of my sewing list!

Butterick 6556 is one of the Patterns by Gertie series, and so unsurprisingly has a bit of a vintage feel about it. The pattern is for a close-fitting dress with lined bodice, square front and back neckine, sleeveless or short sleeved options, a very full pleated skirt, pockets (yay for pockets!), and a centre back lapped zip.

While I have myriad patterns with a fitted bodice and full skirt, the square neckline on B6556 is something a bit different and really appealed to me.

Based on the finished garment measurements, I chose to make a size smaller than recommended for my measurements and cut a 14 at the shoulders/bust, blending out to a 16 at the waist. That worked out nicely and my toile fitted well - it was just a tad snug at the waist (fine when I was standing up but a little tight sitting down and considering that I would want to be able to eat when wearing the dress!). In my actual version I used a fractionally smaller seam allowance at the waist (probably about 1.2 instead of 1.5 cm), and that was enough to give me a bit of breathing space.

I also chose to sew the neckline with a 1 cm seam instead of 1.5 cm just to raise it ever so slightly and bring the shoulders in a touch. I'm gradually coming to the realisation that I probably have proportionately narrow shoulders, and that extra half centimetre on each side helps the shoulder straps to stay in place.

As you may have noticed, I also removed the cut-out/notch/whatever-you-want-to-call-it from the centre front neckline. This was possibly slight laziness on my part because I thought that it would take a bit of effort to get that looking crisp and perfectly symmetrical, and I didn't think it necessarily added much to the dress. I think I actually prefer the unadulterated square neckline.

I also lengthened the bodice by 2.5 cm as is standard for me. Another note on length - the skirt in the pattern is probably a bit longer than most. I often have to lengthen skirts by a couple of inches, but this is the skirt length straight out of the packet and it's bottom-of-the-knee length on me (I'm about 5'9").

The instructions were typical commercial pattern instructions - clear but brief. I did think it was a bit odd that they had you leave a gap at the shoulders when sewing the outer bodice to the lining. That's presumably to make turning the bodice/lining the right way out easier, but I managed to turn mine out perfectly well without leaving a gap and that meant that I then didn't have to hand sew the gap closed.

The fabric I used is one of the longer-term residents in my stash. It's a cotton shirting that I bought a couple of years ago, I'm fairly sure from Fabworks. It was the victim of my over-ambitious seasonal sewing plans and didn't get sewn up before the end of one summer, then got put away and has only just found its way to my sewing table. I think this pattern works quite well with the stripes. Obviously making sure they all matched up nicely took a little bit of time and patience, but I'm happy with how it turned out - especially across that centre back seam and lapped zip.

The only thing I'm not too crazy about is that the fabric creases and wrinkles as soon as you look at it, and it seemed to conspire with my camera to make the dress look a bit ill-fitting in places even though in real life it looks great. I can deal with a few creases though, and let's face it what it looks like in real life is more important than photos.

I'm really pleased with how this dress turned out. The ultimate sign that a project has been successful is when you immediately start dreaming up future versions of the pattern, and I've definitely got a few more Butterick 6556 dresses in my head already. They may not all come to fruition, but a second version is already waiting to be made using some beautiful Seasalt cotton voile - watch this space for that one!

Father's Day shirt - SImplicity 1544

For Father's Day this year, I decided to make my Dad a shirt. But I also decided that it would be best not to make it as a surprise, but instead consult him so he coul pick what features he wanted in the shirt (he has quite specific opinions on pockets) and to make sure that I'd get the fit right. So I presented him with the pattern and fabric, and then I got to work on making him the shirt. Don't worry, it hasn't taken me this long to make the shirt for him - it's been finished for well over a month already - it just took a while to get a couple of pictures of him wearing it.

The pattern I chose is Simplicity 1544 -  a button front shirt with various options for pockets, shoulder tabs and yokes. The collar band, cuff and inside yoke are intended to be cut from a contrast fabric "for a fresh modern approach",

We instantly ignored the contrast fabric options, as well as the studded front yoke option, and the shoulder tabs. My Dad chose the pockets from view D (patch pockets with a buttoned top flap).

You've probably noticed the main difference between the pattern and the version I made is the sleeves - namely that the pattern comes with long sleeves only, and I made short sleeves. This is obviously an easy adjustment to make, and I simply measured the length sleeves on one of my Dad's short-sleeved shirts, added a bit extra for the hem, and then cut my traced pattern piece at that level.

The fabric I used is a pink Oxford stripe shirting from Fabworks. It's a really lovely quality cotton (especially for £4 per metre!), was great to work with and, I'm told, is lovely and soft to wear. Which is good news for me because I over-ordered so I think there may be just about enough left to squeeze out a top of some kind for me. Yay!

The buttons were a stroke of genius on my part (well, maybe not genius, but I was quite pleased with myself when I thought of the idea) because I harvested them from one of my Dad's old shirts. I tend to commandeer shirts that are a bit worn around the cuffs/collar to use the main fabric for linings, so there was one sitting here ready and waiting to have its buttons removed. More sustainable and I didn't have to wait till I could get to a shop to buy some. Everyone wins!

I've made shirts and shirtdresses for myself before, so I'm familiar with all the processes in making a collar, button plackets, etc. but they're still things that for some reason I imagine to be more complicated than they are. Does anyone else do that, or am I just weird?! I think making this shirt will have helped me get over that a bit though, because everything just seemed more straightforward. Admittedly, I did make things slightly easier for myself this time due to the fact that long sleeves and cuffs were eliminated, so maybe that helped.

The collar and collar stand is the area that I've struggled with most on other shirts, but this combination went together easily, and looked right first time without having to unpick and redo anything. Maybe the pattern is drafted particularly well, or maybe I've got better at inserting collars over time. Who knows.

In any case, the instructions were clear and easy to follow throughout. They're not overly hand-holdy, but they don't leaving you scratching your head wondering what on earth they're talking about either.

Shirts aren't necessarily the speediest of projects simply because of the number of pieces involved in creating a collar, button plackets etc. but there's definitely nothing to be afraid of as long as you've got a good pattern. I'm sure I'll be using Simplicity 1544 again in the future because I never usually know what to make for my Dad when it comes to present-giving times, but now I know this is a good option. And making things for people who appreciate the work that has gone into them is always nice, isn't it?

Jenna & Veronika

Hot on the heels of me saying last week that I needed more pink in my wardrobe, here is more pink! Albeit partially combined with various shades of blue and green, but that's no bad thing. This combination is a Muse Patterns Jenna cardi and Megan Nielsen Veronika skirt.

I've made the Jenna cardigan twice before (once for me, once as a Christmas present for my Mum), but I didn't ever get around to blogging about it - partly because it was in the run up to Christmas and I was pretty busy, and partly because they're both plain navy blue so aren't that easy (or interesting) to photograph. I've worn mine loads though, so I knew it wouldn't be long before I'd be sewing another version.

This is the waist-length version of the Jenna cardi with long sleeves, and omitting the optional yoke detailing. I made a size 38, with a couple of adjustments to the sleeve. In my first version the sleeves worked nicely, but that was using a sweatshirting, and the lighter jersey I used here (which is from Fabworks - although I can't find the exact one on their site now) produced a very different fit and the sleeves were too big and too long. I took 5cm off the length of the sleeves, and slimmed down the sleeves by about 3cm at the cuff, tapering up to join the original seam line at the underarm.

I'm pretty happy with it, although if I make it again I'd probably add a little bit of length. I've mainly been wearing my first version with dresses, and then the length seems fine, but wearing this version with a skirt makes me think that it might be better just a touch longer so that I don't end up with that little gap around my waist. It's only a small niggle though, and definitely won't stop me wearing it!

The skirt is my fifth version of the Veronika skirt (other versions here, here, here & unblogged). Yes, Veronika is just a circle skirt and I could draft my own - but if someone is going to be nice enough to do the drafting for me and give it to me for free then I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I don't think I strictly needed this skirt, but when I saw the fabric on Fabric Godmother's Instagram feed I just had to have it. The large-scale print seemed like it would be well suited to a circle skirt so I ordered enough for a Veronika. I wasn't disappointed when it arrived - it's a really nice stretch cotton, and the colours are gorgeous.

All in all, I'm really pleased with both of these, and especially with how nicely they work together. I think the cardi will be getting more wear than the skirt because it'll go with quite a few of my dresses/skirts, but if I'm honest the skirt is the more exciting part of this outfit - you can't beat a twirly skirt in a pretty print, can you?!