The "Perfect" Dress - a cautionary tale

Let me start this post by telling you all that I can never make anything perfect, I just can't do it. Be it a wonky hem, a rushed dart, stitching escaping the ditch it does not matter what the issue is there will always be one. Mostly this comes down to the fact that I rush most things, even the things I make a conscious effort not to rush somehow end up finished in a week of nights at most with some issue, or slip up for me to focus on at later dates thinking if I just... but being to lazy to re-do.

Enter Buttericks retro reprint 6582. To start with I made this in the full skirt version, which I will post about later once I have pics of me actually in the dress, sufficed to say it has some issues but generally I was happy with the outcome of the size 10 full skirt version, the wonky hem I can ignore the arm holes made for barbie thin arms I can handle, it is one of my favourite works. But this is supposed to be about the wiggle version right there on the front in the black.

Just look at it, doesn't it scream sex kitten? Is it not the hottest little number you have ever seen? The sexy curves the modest yet alluring neckline, surely the perfect pattern. And look at the fabric I found. A beautiful cotton sateen, with an abstract rose pattern in fuchsia and gray and cream. Modern and Retro all in one and sexily perfect for my perfectly sexy pattern.

The problems started at get go. I didn't have enough material to cut it with the stretch and so I cut it against the stretch. No biggie. It fit Just.

Then I realised that I had cut a piece the wrong way - so I re-cut it out of my minimal scraps only to realise then that I was an idiot because it was already cut the right way. Then I located another piece that was cut the wrong way and I had nothing left to cut it from but hey it was a facing piece so again no biggy.

I really took my time on it - taking a week of nights to finish a pattern that has only limited pieces and I would normally run together in a couple of hours. I took extra care that my double ended darts started and finished symmetrically, I painstakingly lined up and re-lined up my zip, I read and re-read the kick pleat instructions until I got it all just perfect. And it is - you can see it here on Mavis, this dress is everything it promised, sexy but classy, slinky but elegant. Beautiful.

Want to know why it is on Mavis, well because the bastard is at least 2 sizes to small for me!!!!! So maybe I didn't measure myself first up, generally I would accept a slip up like this to be my own fault, I obviously made the wrong size. Except remember above where I said I had made the other version, the full skirted version, in the same size. Remember how I said it fits me fine. Well the very same pattern has a wiggle dress that is two sizes smaller than the skirted dress. They share only one piece, and due to changes I made on the full skirt I didn't even use that piece the first time (the small triangle-ish piece that makes the false cross-over effect, on the full skirt I made it a proper cross-over).

So I made changes to the full skirt - but those changes should have made it tighter not looser!!! How could Butterick, a normally reputable company make such an error, just to mess with the heads of impatient people like me who assume that they put to much ease into all there patterns? For the record I measure up to a 14 or 16 bust on most modern patterns but all that measurement is out front, my back is quite small. I usually make a 10 or 12 and that fits fine, but this one I made a 10 and should have made a 14 or 16, and it isn't even the bust that is the biggest problem. It is the hips, that sexy curve is not so curvy on the real thing, infact it is pretty straight. Even if I had of cut with the stretch there would still not be enough butter to grease me into this dress.

The lesson I learnt - www.patternreview.com, learn it, live it, love it. Had I but read some of the reviews available on this site, I would have known the inherent problems with Butterick 6582 and all of this angst could have been avoided.

To those with the discerning eye yes I have not hemmed the dress yet - despite it being finished for months. It is too perfect to forget so I have been hunting for the person who will fit this perfect dress, so that they may enjoy it's wonders. That does mean however that it will need to be hemmed to them and unfortunately not me.