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You know who loves a 50s style gingham dress? THIS GIRL!

I made this dress back last year for a cousin’s wedding, and GOD DAMN do I love it. The pattern is self-drafted, which I adapted from the No Cock Nor Tails dress. The only difference between the NCNT and this dress is the addition of shaped shoulders and a pleated dirndl skirt.

I bought the fabric from Rolls and Rems in Holloway Road – and it’s literally everything you could hope for in fabric. It’s definitely not 100% cotton, but you really wouldn’t notice since it’s so soft! It’s a 1-inch gingham, perfect for the knife pleats of the skirt and it just looks much more striking than smaller checks.

Hair Flowers; Lady Lucks Boutique
Shrug&Belt; Collectif
Bag; Vintage
Shoes; Miss L Fire

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I have a thing for Gingham.

I don’t know exactly why I love it so much, but there’s something about gingham that draws me into it. This cotton gingham in particular is a dream to work with – large woven check, behaves itself and although it can fray easily (as with most cotton) pinking is no problem for seam finishes.

There’s so little I can say about the making of this dress, because you’ve seen it all before. Yes, it’s that damn Butterick B5880 bodice again!

Much like the last three. damn. dresses. I used the B5880 bodice with, I have omitted the neckline notches, graded the bodice up and down and all around, added a sort-of-Kimono-sleeve – and then whacked on a box-pleated dirndl and rectangle patch pockets for good measure.

There are a couple of “new features”, if you will, though. Unlike previous B5880’s, this one features a centre back lapped zipper (explaining the fancy-ass zip picture) instead of a invisible side zip, which actually makes this dress really hard to get in and out of without help (balls.) I’ve also lowered and widened the neckline to be more of a boatneck, although I’m not to sure on it.

I also attempted a tip that came up on Twitter quite a while back about hemming – which was basically just sewing your fashion fabric and lining fabric as a normal seam and just pressing. It’s my sort of tip – the lazy girl’s way! At the very least, it gives a nice, invisible hem.

Construction-wise, you’d really think I’d have this damn bodice down perfectly – but no! This was one of those months-long projects that kept getting thrown in the bin because things weren’t working out – then I’d leave it for a month, correct it like it was no problem, and something stupid would happen and it’s back in the bin.

I’ve still not worked out the best way of fixing the bodice gape, and let’s not talk about the sleeves being weird and baggy – unless you have a suggestion of how to stop that asap.