Lace Prom-Style Dress

Pattern Review - Butterick 4443


I wore this last weekend to celebrate my godmother's birthday. It was great to catch-up with family and the weather was fab. I was planning to wear this the following weekend, but my sewing mojo needing relieving and out popped this:-


Butterick 4443 is another one pattern where the line drawings and pattern reviews led me to purchase as opposed to the envelope picture. I was attracted to the simple bodice variations, but was worried by the slightly 'mumsy' looking model with the ill fitted gaping neckline.....

B4443

I feel pretty pleased with how this dress turned out, although I did spend alot of time perfecting the fit. I really shouldn't say 'perfecting' as (of course) I didn't bother to do an FBA. I cut a size 14 - the skirt was full enough at the hips so I didn't have to grade out to a 16. I took approximately 2.5" off the front and back at the waistline, and graded the seams out as they went up the bust. The only other alteration is the obvious shortening of the skirt. 


The easiness of the pattern definitely makes up for the amount spent on fit. The construction method is very straightforward and standard. As the dress has princess seams this makes it very easy to fit as you go along. As per my simple tank top the simple lines allow the fabric to be the star of the show and I absolutely love the way the skirt falls on this dress. 


In case you missed the last post, this fabric was purchased from Fabricland at £3.99 per metre. For those of you based in the UK this is a steal, as it the lace is already underlined. The bodice is lined with some lining from my mum's stash. Originally I cut out the lining for the skirt, however as the fabric has a bit of stretch  I was worried that it would fall strangely, therefore I omitted it. 


I would be very happy to sew this again - in fact I have some other satin like fabric sat in my stash that has this pattern's name on it!

My Pattern Review can be found here. 

 Happy Sewing!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

April Garment of the Month - Dress for Easter

Image
Pattern Review: Butterick 4443 Happy Easter! After spending Saturday in sunny Brighton, today in London is a such a contrast. Grey and miserable, but the perfect excuse to curl up in bed with a coffee and catch up on sewing blogs. So here is my April garment of the month - another version of Butterick 4443 . I have made this previously here  and I really love the style of the dress. I picked up this crepe like fabric from Goldhawk Road priced at £3 per metre sometime last year. I knew instantly that it would be great for another version of the dress. It drapes perfectly. As the fabric was quite thin I underlined all of the pieces with some stretch lining picked up from Simply Fabrics in Brixton, priced at £1 per metre.  I cut a size 14 and made my usual alteration to take in the waist and under the bust. I was very proud of myself as last time I made this dress I altered the skirt to make it shorter and remove some of the fullness. For this I traced ...
Read more

July Garment of the Month

Image
Pattern Review: Simplicity 1872 My mum had a retirement party this weekend and of course I had to make a dress to celebrate. I had been wanting to try out the dress from Simplicity 1872 for years and finally decided to take the plunge. I have made this pattern as a peplum top  before, but it was so old that it went to the charity shop earlier this year, so it's nice to have another iteration of the pattern in my wardrobe. Ok,so let's talk fabric. I picked this up at the textile district around the Sacre Couer on my holiday to Paris with my mum last September. It cost €10 for 3 metres which is a bargain. I am pretty sure that it is some kind of polyester chiffon. I underlined the dress with stretch lining from Simply Fabrics in Brixton priced at £1 per metre.  I know that a couple of people have mentioned that there is a huge amount of ease in this pattern. It is true and I took out approximately 2" in the bodice and cut a larger armhole to compensate. T...
Read more

Scrap-Busting - Part 2

Image
Pattern Review: McCall's 3341 Firstly, some breaking news which is that I am currently featured on Pattern Review as their Member in Focus. You can check out my interview here. As promised, here is my second stash busting mini. For this skirt I used McCall's 3341  and went with View E. I have made this before in my pre-blogging days, also to use up a remnant of leftover fabric. This is a simple a-line skirt with darts in the front and back and is a pattern that I stole from my Mum's stash years ago. I cut a size 16 and sewed this straight out of the envelope. The only (lazy) change I made was to omit the waist band. I am trying to demonstrate with my above pose how the skirt is designed to sit just above your natural waist. I always find this quite strange in patterns, as so few RTW clothes have this feature. I'm sure that I have seen a tutorial somewhere (maybe Threads?) on how to lower the waistline of a pattern, but as I was doing some stash-busting/insta...
Read more