Linen Wrap Dress

Wow, it feels like it has been ages since I had time to write anything. I've been dealing with a crazy time-consuming project at work, which means I haven't been home during daylight hours for a while. I live in a basement so taking pictures is difficult at best and downright impossible if the sun has already gone down.

One of my recent projects was to make a white curtain in order to facilitate picture taking, but my boyfriend has not found the time to hang it for me yet, so I've been trying to make due.

Last Sunday I wore my wrap dress and had him take a few pictures of me while we hung around downtown waiting for my mom to get off the ferry.

I am so pleased with the way this dress turned out. The fabric was this linen/cotton mix from JoAnn's. With a coupon, it was a reasonable price. The fabric was kind of tricky to sew with because it was kind of "slippery" feeling. If you just touched the fabric you would never say slippery, if anything it has a kind of pleasantly rough textured, but when actually trying to sew with it the fabric just wanted to slip and slid all over the place. 

The fabric also wanted to fray pretty badly. Every seam is fully finished (flat fell on the top like I talked about in this post, french seams along the sides and waist, slip stitched neckline, rolled hem on the sleeves and a herringbone stitch hem). It was a great challenge to work with and I loved every second of it. I would totally work with this fabric again. 

(I'm giving some guys stink eye for trying to walk into my picture)

That being said, I don't think I will use this pattern again (Butterick 5030). Although it fits well enough, I am not completely happy with the neckline. I actually had to safety pin it shut because the line of the dress was such that I would have been flashing a lot of boob if I had let it fall where it wanted to. Maybe if I was smaller in the chest it would look better, but I'm not and it's only mediocre. I also would have liked a little more fullness in the skirt. My last issue was that I had to wear heels (and let me tell you, after a full day of walking around Seattle my feet were killing me, I was limping and whimpering a little bit trying to get back to my car) in order to get the line of the dress to fall correctly. I tried it on with ballet flats, but it just made my legs look short. If the dress was shorter so that it fell at or above my knees instead of below them I probably would have looked more balanced in flats.

All in all, I like the dress. I will totally wear it again. I like the forgiving nature of the wrap and I love the fabric. I just need to make a purse to go with it and I will call this a great outfit. Next couple of posts will be about the slip I made to go under the dress and the sweater. 

Oh, and I'm sure it goes without saying, but I am in no way associated with JoAnn's or with Butterick.