Butterick 5244

I finally decided to finish butterick 5244. This dress ended up being perfect for Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not sure why I had orginally chosen to do this in brown but in the end the color choice is what kept it from being a total flop. After starting this dress several weeks ago and not loving the collar I stopped and tossed it in a corner. Once I remembered it and the fact that it was brown I decided to finish it and wear it from T Day, especially since we didn't actually have any turkey. I had to crack a smile when I came out of the bedroom and DH looks at me and goes "Now I know why we aren't having turkey". I clearly wasn't happy with the outcome but and it has already been added to the 'Only wear around the house' pile of clothing. Here is my full review:

Pattern Description: Dress in two lengths with front gathers, welt pockets, self-faced yoke, collar, tabs with nonfunctioning buttons and raglan sleeves in two lengths.

Pattern Sizing: AA(6-8-10-12), EE(14-16-18-20)

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Yes but no thanks to the instructions.

Were the instructions easy to follow? I personally did not like the directions for the yoke and collar. Which is too bad since that was the most 'exciting' part of the dress. I ended up tossing the directions away halfway through and finished it doing what I thought made sense. I felt like all the facing combined with the thickness of the material made it very bulky and thus it wouldn't lie flat. Once I added the buttons it helped some but I still ended up doing some slip stitching in the back.


What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? The pattern itself should have been fairly easy to construct but I did not like how the collar was constructed. I'm not sure what happened but there was a large gap in the back because the collar didn't meet like it should have. The rest of the dress was very easy to sew together.










Fabric Used: a chocolate poly knit from fabric.com

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: I did not cover the buttons just because I refused to spend any more time on this dress.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I would not sew this again just because mine turned out to be a dud. I wouldn't recommend it just because I didn't like the end result but if you do make I'm almost certain you will need to make some modifications.

Conclusion: This should have been an easy sew but I did not like the end result. This pattern orginally caught my eye because of the collar which I thought was very cute. It ended up being a pain with poor directions.