Totally biased

Pattern: Butterick 5782
View: C
Size: 12
Fabric: Wine suiting. Can't remember where from!

I am very fond of the first version I made of this dress. It's a simple, elegant shape that hangs and swishes nicely and always gets compliments. I decided that I would make another, but with a very different neckline so hopefully it looks like quite a different beast. View C has a v neck and a cute bit of ruching on the front and I decided, as my fabric is plain, that I would bias bind the edges to add some interest. I found this divine gingham binding in Mason's which was just the ticket.

I chose not to line this version as the fabric is really thick and heavy already so doesn't need any more weight adding to it. Also, I thought it would be simpler to bind the edges without a lining in the way.



Because of that, it worked up really quickly until I realised just how woven this fabric is, and therefore just how much it was going to fray. It held itself together really well until I'd done a few seams and then with a "Ready? One, two, three" it began to literally fall apart around me. To save the dress, I decided to bias bind the seams which looks lovely. I didn't have any complementary coloured binding so used some navy blue I already had. I quite like the contrast so no problem with that. I used French seams on some of the ones I hadn't already done as there was no way I had enough binding to do all of them. It was really quite trying as the fabric was fraying quicker than I could tame it! I finally managed to get it all under control, I think!

The construction of the neckline left me perplexed for a while (and I'm still not convinced it's the most effective method) and some time was spent wearing the dress like a waistcoat and trying to pin it to look like the instructions.

Amusingly, putting in zips no longer bothers me at all. They're never invisible, probably due to me not having an invisible zipper foot, but they're not scary at least. Binding is a bit more fiddly and I ended up unpicking my machine topstitching and sewing it on to the right side by hand which looks a lot neater and more finished.

Whilst being a lot more fiddly and time-consuming than I had expected, this dress was still a breeze compared to the last one!

No amount of fussing will get that neckline to sit completely flat!

Non-invisible zip. So, visible, then.