Butterick 6727: My Fabricville "House Dress"

For my latest Fabricville blogger project I've made myself a classic House Dress...well, maybe I'm stretching it a bit. I've made a faux wrap dress from Butterick 6727, in a fun cotton print covered in colourful houses. It makes me think of  Bergen or St. John's or Kyiv! 

This was a pretty simple project but it took a bit of time thanks to the special details. I made View B, with piping trim and a below knee length. The dress is a faux wrap, with the crossover bodice and skirt both sewn shut together at the waistline seam and then tacked down by the buttons along the front. Which are also faux -- they are stitched on through all layers at the very end, the closure is actually an invisible zip in the back. Although if you really wanted to you could eliminate the back zip and make real buttonholes in the front, as the crossovers are quite deep and all faced. I don't think you'd run the risk of flashing anyone with this pattern any way you chose to make it. 

The only slightly more difficult part was attaching the waist seam. This was because you have to be careful that the two piping ends on the bodice and skirt line up properly so it's a continuous line from neck to hem, and because there are a lot of layers there while you're doing it. With the crossovers on the bodice and the skirt both basted down, along with their facings, you are essentially stitching through 6-8 layers of fabric at one point. So don't choose a thick or heavy fabric for this one! My cotton is very lightweight and crisp, and I used lightweight interfacing, so it worked very nicely. 

This sewed up quickly once I got going. The only alteration I made was to shorten both the bodice and the skirt by 1" each.  I cut a 14 at neck, 16 at bust, and 18 at waist to make easy size adjustments for my figure, which usually works quite well. But, I find there is a bit of extra height in the shoulder area, which I could have taken in a bit so I might add some 1/4" shoulder pads to fill out that space later on. Otherwise, this was an easy sew, with a nice cotton that behaved beautifully. I really like the piping detail and feel secure in this faux wrap, which I never do in an actual wrap dress! My first dress of the season, to appear shortly on the Fabricville blog as well!