Dressy

Butterick 5986 is super simple to sew together.

It gets a bit more complicated when you come       

to folding/stitching the hem together ‘correctly’.
But really, with something like this
what is ‘right’
is only limited by your creativity.
(And hopefully I wrote the directions
so you understand them.)

Part of the dress 'hem' is stitched together 

to form 'corners' that drape

while the other side has an elastic casing

to gather the hem.

I like to mark the hemline notches

with a piece of masking tape 

(blue so it doesn't harm the fabric).

I write a letter or number on the tape

to help remind me what matches up

with what.

Always, after writing the directions
and sending everything off to Butterick,
I get more ideas of things
that could happen with the pattern.

 This tip comes from my friend Alex

who made the dress and decided she wanted

a more stable shoulder line.

So she added one...

First stitch together the body of the dress.
Try it on, arrange the neckline

and mark your shoulder line with pins.
Draw this line on the inside of the dress with chalk.
Iron a (1/4” to 3/8” wide) strip
of fusible interfacing on the line.
Stitch this strip in place
along the shoulder line.
Then continue sewing the dress.

I made a version with sleeves

using the same

purple and black graded stripe fabric

as shown on the pattern sample.

Any of the great stripes and other mid-weight knits

on Marcy's website

will work well for this dress.

 You want to use a knit fabric 

with some softness and drape like the

Kingman tourquoise bamboo/spandex

I used in this version of the pattern sample.

The dress shape skims the body

in a most flattering way.