Butterick 6020

The pattern:



Front view of the finished dress:



And the back:



The fabric is a cotton with a little bit of stretch. I can't really say for sure as it was thrifted.

This was my first time matching stripes like this. Fortunately, the process is often described in especially older sewing books, so I had come across it previously. I do, however, owe some thanks to a friend of mine who helped refresh my memory. She also said it was a good idea to write on the pattern which colour each stripe was, seeing as I was dealing with three different colours of stripes. Here's a picture of how it looks on the pattern piece (note: the placement of the pattern on the fabric in the picture below is completely random, the fabric merely serves as a background):



It's pretty simple to do and I was very pleased with the result. What you do is you place the pattern piece on the fabric according to what the piece dictates with regard to the straight grain of the fabric. Then you take a ruler and draw lines on the pattern piece that are a couple of inches long, or whatever you find best, representing each stripe. Then you turn the pattern piece to make sure you get a mirrored piece, making sure the stripes match each other in colour. I had to turn the piece around by 180 degrees, because the fabric had three different colour stripes.

The pockets are the really special thing about this dress. I decided to sew them on by hand because the fabric had a tendency to crawl together when I used a sewing machine, so it took a while, but it was pretty straight forward. If i make the dress again in a fabric that is easier to work with, I will probably use a sewing maching to attach the pockets. Here's a close-up of them:



All in all, this pattern was a positive experience, albeit demanding due to the stripes. I often use size 14 Butterick patterns from the early 1950s and I usually have to take them in a little. This one, however, seemed to run a bit small, but fortunately it all worked out.

Thank you for reading :)