Tag: Butterick_2344

The Hundred Dresses: Day 88

Erin5 Comments

This is dress is 1) Butterick 2344, and 2) wrong:

orange pique Butterick 2344 back

It’s the same pattern as Day 66, and suffers from some of the same problems that were due to my inexperience, plus a few extra that can be attributed to me picking the wrong fabric, like this roly-poly facing here:

orange pique Butterick 2344 bodice

There’s not enough understitching in the WORLD to keep this heavy pique from rolling. I could have superglued it down and it still would have rolled.

orange pique Butterick 2344 facing

It’s ironic that the one thing I love about this dress is it’s fatal flaw — see how gorgeous this fabric is? It’s not its fault that I made it into the wrong thing:

orange pique Butterick 2344 fabric

Trying to put a regular zipper in was rage-inducing — this here is the point where I said “I’ll just wear a sweater over it“:

orange pique Butterick 2344 back zip

And here’s the whole back:

orange pique Butterick 2344 back

I’d like to say that I keep this dress around as an object lesson in not letting your fabric and pattern be star-crossed lovers, but really I keep it around because … I still like it. I think “oh maybe if I …” then I take it out and fondle it for a bit, and then I get distracted by a dress I can actually make/fix/wear and then back it goes into the suspended-animation storage tub. I should really cut up that huge heavy skirt and turn it into dresses for my nieces, who are now just at the age where little shift dresses (which would be GREAT in this fabric) are perfect.

Oh — in The-Hundred-Dresses-the-book news, did everyone see the perfect essay by John Waters on The Sack Dress in this month’s Bazaar? Unfortunately I can’t find it online, but it’s well worth grabbing the physical (US) magazine for.

The Hundred Dresses: Day 66

Erin8 Comments

This one is definitely dug out from the time capsule. It’s been hanging in my “active duty” closet, but I’m not sure if I’ve worn it in the past year. It’s (mostly) Butterick 2344 — I know I used a different (circle) skirt pattern:

yellow broken plaid Butterick 2344 front

I originally made this dress in early 2006, to give one of the first “big-conference” talks I ever did.

yellow broken plaid Butterick 2344 bodice

It’s funny to look at these older dresses now — I see all sorts of things I’d do differently today. It looks like perhaps I didn’t pre-wash this piping …

yellow broken plaid Butterick 2344 midriff

Boy, I wish I had more of this fabric. I remember I bought it at Paron’s, and it wasn’t even in the sale section. I loved it that much. Such a sucker for broken plaids, I am. Looking at it now, though, I’m wondering if maybe it was upholstery fabric? It’s almost that weight. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

And this is probably the ONLY back-zip dress I currently own (that’s not vintage):

yellow broken plaid Butterick 2344 back

I know some folks have been asking in the comments “what’s with all the side zips?” and I thought I’d show this dress so I can explain … except there really isn’t a good explanation for why I vastly prefer side zippers; I only have justifications. Which mostly are:

  • I have some lingering shoulder issues from ill-advised and uncoordinated college sports days, which make doing the “reach to the middle of my back” contortion uncomfortable, and I travel alone quite a bit and don’t always have someone handy to help with the zipping/unzipping
  • Back zips are too public, I like my zippers hidden under my arm
  • Back zips are usually much longer than side zips, which means more leeway for things to go wrong
  • Harder to match prints across back zips (for me, at least)
  • I don’t like the extra step to finish the facing nicely at the top of zip (laziness)

That’s pretty much it! No really good reasons, except maybe the first one.