Fly Away

I finished my second butterfly dress the day I wanted to wear it! Sort of...

I finished the skirt segment in June. I'd been debating for years, literally, which of two fabrics in my stash I should use for the bodice.

About two weeks before the day I wanted to wear the dress, I found the prettiest butterfly fabric. There was but a half yard left, so I ordered it and hoped it would be here on time. I had another dress picked out to wear, just in case.

My purchase timing wasn't so great. It was the annual 4th of July sale, and I received an email notifying me the orders might take a bit longer. I received the half yard of fabric the day before I wanted to wear the dress.

I cut out the bodice that night, using a plain black solid for the lining, and all night long, I visualized how I would put the bodice together the next morning as soon as my alarm went off.

The lining was my own idea; the dress, which comes from three different patterns I mixed and matched, featured bodice facings I don't really like. When I do a full lining on a sleeveless bodice, I want the armholes and neckline to be perfect by stitching the entire curve, clipping the seams, then turning the bodice outside right with smooth contours. Most fully lined sleeveless bodice patterns provide instructions to make one or the other perfect, depending upon which order you construct the pieces.

I came up with my idea a few years ago to stitch together the bodice front curves then the bodice back curves, then sew the bodice sides together, then finish off by hand-sewing the shoulder seams by simply inserting the front armhole tabs into the back armhole openings. But it had been so long ago, I wasn't sure I could remember how I had done it. So I played with bodice pieces in my head and in my dreams until I figured it out again.

The next morning, I had the bodice finished in about an hour. I had forgotten I had added a couple of inches of length to the bodice and adjusted the skirt panels to fit the bodice when I designed my first butterfly dress back in 2018.

The skirt of the new butterfly dress was too big for the shorter-than-I planned bodice, so I gathered the skirt and attached it. Gathers were not in the original plan at all, and it wasn't something I wanted to do, especially with the now princess waistline, but it prevented having to undo the skirt panels (and the machine embroidery top stitching!!!). I can live with the modifications.

I didn't top stitch the side seams of the skirt, and I didn't tack down the lining on the inside, but the dress worked just fine for my best day ever because no one looked inside the dress and no one paid any attention to any of the seams.

I completed the side seam top stitching and the lining hand-stitching last weekend, and wore the fully completed dress to church on Sunday.

I liked the black butterfly fabric so much, I ordered another yard of it from a different shop. Then I decided it was high time I go through the last year of still-in-the-packaging fabric acquisitions, which have been hogging up space on my dining room table for probably a year, to organize them and put them away.

At the bottom of one stack was another yard of that same black butterfly fabric!!! I guess that's proof how much I like it! I had been thinking it might be nice to get six yards and make an entire dress (different pattern, of course) using just that fabric. Well, now I'm two yards into that dream and could pull it off if I buy four more yards!!! Ha ha ha!

But, no, I have other unfinished dresses waiting for my attention, and I have other fabric I initially bought for dresses I need to either use for dresses or figure out some other way to use up before they are so old, they are really out of style! Just teasing. I kind of like fabric and patterns that are no longer hip.

Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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