Butterick B6446 Wrap Dress

I made another dress from souvenir fabric bought during my trip to  Raleigh/NC. I bought the fabric at Joann Fabrics in Raleigh together with the flannel fabric I made a Belladone dress from. There are lots of peonies in different shades of pink printed on it. And I think it was not meant to be a fashion fabric but patchwork fabric. The cotton is medium weight and the fabric was 110 cm wide. As far as I remember it was on sale. Nevertheless I only bought 2 yards, because I had limited space in my suitcase.The length and width restrictions made it a little harder to find a suitable dress pattern. I knew I wanted to make a summer dress from this fabric. Luckily I also ordered some Butterick patterns on sale that Marvin brought with him when he came back home. I took the chance and ordered the fake wrap dress pattern B6446 that I had seen on Dolly Clackett and had my eyes on since then.

For my Butterick size, which is size 8, you only need 2 3/8 yards of fabric. Feasible I thought and gave it a try! Of course I had to omit the sleeves and I didn’t lengthen the skirt and cut View A, which has the shortest skirt version. And even though I had to mind the direction of the print I managed to cut the whole dress from my 2 yards of fabric. I even managed to cut the in-seam pockets from the fabric. The flowers on the pocket pieces are upside down however.

And speaking of pockets. I really like that the top of the pockets is sewn into the waist seam. That qay the pockets stay where they are supposed to be :) However they tend to gape a little as you might notice in the pictures.

I made a muslin before cutting into the nice fabric. Especially to see if my lengthening of the bodice had worked out. The pattern has no lengthening/shortening lines for the bodice, which is often the case when a bodice is hard to lengthen. I lengthened parallel to the wait seam. By 1 cm above the first pleat, by 1 cm between the two pleats and by 2 cm underneath the pleats. The pattern features two different bodice fronts, one that overlaps and has pleats and the other one (that underlaps if you so will ;)) that features common bust darts and is also used for both lining fronts.

The muslin showed that the lengthening worked out fine, I only had to lower the arm scye a little.

The patterns tells you to line the bodice, there are no pattern pieces for facings. And so I lined the bodice completely. I used some very light cotton lawn and I hope it won’t add any extra warmth.

The pattern describes really well how you have to assemble the bodice shell and lining to get a neat finish of the neckline and arm holes. However as this is a wrap dress, you cannot hide the seam allowance of the waist seam between the two layers, so I overlocked that seam. That makes it impossible to warps the invisible zipper between shell and lining and so I decided to overlock the center back seam allowances  as well. To make up for this I french seamed the side seams and hemmed the skirt with some invisible hand stitches.


Something worth noting concerning this pattern might be that size 8 is not the size I would have picked from looking at the measurement charts, according to those charts I would at least need to sew a size 10. Plus another very important thing to me concerning the patter is, that 5/8″ seam allowances are included in the pattern and the instructions are very thorough.

So, this was the last fabric I bought in America that was still in my stash. But don’t worry I still have 2 or 3 patterns left to try :)

Macht’s gut!

Katharina

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4 thoughts on “Butterick B6446 Wrap Dress

  1. Lisa

    Super cute! This style looks great on you as well as this pretty shade of rose. Nice how the neckline is definitely part of the wrap, yet doesn’t gape nor cut too low. Very nice!! :)

    Reply
    1. Katharina Post author

      Thanks Lisa! Yes, I really like how high the neckline is. I prefer that over low cut necklines. I also really like how wrap dresses look, but I find them a little complicated to wear. and so this is a perfect compromise :)

      Reply
  2. Sue

    Such a pretty summer dress. Sometimes the best fabrics are quilting cottons and this one looks gorgeous made into your faux wrap. A delight!

    Reply