Black & White Dress {Buttrick B4443}

For Halloween, I wanted to make a costume that I could use as an everyday dress too. I ended up with this Black & White dress.

I started this project by taking a peek inside my fabric closet. Low and behold I found the prefect fabric, it was a white cotton with a mix of screen printed and embroidered black flowers on it. I had gotten just about 2 yards at an antique store some time ago and had been saving it for the right project. 

Since I had such a limited amount of the fabric I had to find a pattern that would work with it. I also figured if I ran short a bit I could use some black cotton fabric I had lying around, as a good contrasting piece. I finally decided to go with Buttrick pattern B4443. The pattern was  for a simple sleeveless dress. I’m not one to wear sleeveless dress, but since I figure I could always pair the dress with a jacket or cardigan.

As for the pattern I went with version B, since I knew I’d need some contrast fabric anyways. I was also a bit short on the skirt length so, I ended up  cutting a bottom band out of black for the bottom of the skirt as well. 

Although I followed the pattern, and measured it to fit my bust size, there was one thing I didn’t account for. This was a sleeveless dress, and held up mainly by the bust, so while I measured the pattern to myself with the bra I had on at the time, it wasn’t the strap-less bra, which I actually wore with the dress. Seams I measured the pattern with a slightly more padded bar, but since the strap-less bra wasn’t as padded, the bust was way too loose. When I got to work I actually had to safety-pin the sides of the dress to keep it from falling off. Good thing I wore a jacket with it.

In the end the dress, was causing me so many fits, on Halloween, I ended up changing mid day. However, that weekend I did have some time to go back and readjust the dress. I did the side seems along the bust and it seemed to fix any prior issues. I also had a bit of time to go back and add the accessories including the black belt and fabric flower. 

The pattern had you pin a store-bought flower to the belt. However, I had just enough fabric left over I was able to create a flower of my own.

To create the flower I basically just cut the fabric into long strips, on was 2″ wide, 3″ wide and 4″ wide. Then I sewed each strip in half lengthwise using a gathering stitch. Then I gathered the strips as much as possible. Next starting with the smallest strip I began to roll the strip, using a hot glue gun to hold it in place. When I got to the end, I began to roll the 3″ strip around it, in the same manner. Finally I repeated this for the 4″ strip as well. After all the strips were rolled and glued together, I glued a piece of fabric on the back and the pin. 

I finally got to wear the my new black & white dress, without any problems, this weekend on date with my hubby. He suggested I wear my hair with a side ponytail and then he snapped a few pictures of me in it, saying I needed to practice on my posing.