Butterick 5520 - the shiny black dress - finished!

When I received a party invitation that said ‘dress glamorous’ I immediately thought of the black crepe back satin fabric that has been sitting in my stash waiting to be transformed into a special occasion dress. The pattern I decided on was Butterick 5520. I combined the black satin with some black lace and came up with this dress.

I used the black satin (purchased at Paron Fabrics in New York) for the main body of the dress, the sleeves are made from the lace (from Gorgeous Fabrics) that I underlined with a nude coloured silk satin (from a store in the Goldhawk Road in London). Here is a close up of the bodice

I lined the bodice and skirt with black bemberg rayon and the sleeves are lined in a nude colour – here’s a picture of the inside of the bodice.

As you may have noticed, I actually took the trouble to change the colour of the thread when I was understitching around the neckline so that there wasn’t a line of black stitching around the part of the neckline where the sleeves are (a small detail but it does make it look nicer inside). Once all the different fabrics were cut and the sleeves were underlined, this dress wasn’t very complicated or difficult to make up. Basically it’s a sheath dress with raglan sleeves but you can mix and match various fabrics to give it different looks. Here’s a reminder of the pattern envelope.
I decided against the peplum (although I do like that style) because I felt that, for a short person like me, there was enough going on with the shiny black satin and lace without breaking me up in the middle. I wanted to look sleek and shiny (you see I paired it with shiny patent shoes).

When my husband and I walked into the party (which was lavishly located at Claridges Hotel) there were a lot of very glamorous dresses being worn – I whispered to my husband that I bet I was the only one there wearing a home made dress! But I think it did just fine – I passed for ‘glamorous’ and the nice thing about making your own is that it fits right and no-one else is going to be wearing the same dress, (oh, yes, and it didn’t cost hundreds of pounds!).

As I mentioned in my last post, I am currently working on making some t-shirts so that I can put my new coverstitch machine through its paces but I took a little break from sewing to spend a weekend visiting friends in Leeds, (which is in Yorkshire, in the north of England). I bought some fabric, visited a wonderful button shop and fell in love with Yorkshire but more about that soon ….