Ginghamalong Shirt Dress

About a month ago Karen from Did You Make That posted a Ginghamalong challenge which was the push I needed to go ahead and attempt to replicate a dress I’d pinned to my DIY Inspiration Pinterest board:

So it was off to my local Spotlight to see what I could find. I picked up the Butterick B6333 pattern and used a 50% off voucher for 3 metres of black and white gingham. Score 🙂

Here it is on its maiden outing to the Show last week:

The square on my fabric isn’t as large as my inspiration dress but other than that I think I did pretty damn well 😛
Especially considering this is the third ever pattern I’ve used.
On that note, I did run into some issues..

In a total rookie error I not only purchased the pattern in the size that matches my dress size instead of my matching my measurements, but I didn’t realise my mistake until I’d neatly cut out all the pieces in size 14. D’oh. I already decided on being all professional like and making a muslin of the bodice first so I was able to play around add a little extra room to the front sides. A close save really. Or perhaps an indication I’m becoming more skilled? haha yeah let’s go with that 😛

I was not at all skilled at putting in the collar, though. The instructions had me all mixed up and I pinned it, decided it was wrong, pinned it differently, decided that too was wrong, and on and on until I finally decided I had it right.

I don’t like the height of the collar; it’s too much of a man’s shirt collar for my liking.

The print matches well across the front bodice and skirt but really nowhere else. I am completely clueless when it comes to pattern matching!

And it would seem I have an aversion to using the skirt pattern designed for the dress. For my recent sailor dress I skipped the skirt pattern in favour of a simple gathered one. This time I didn’t like the line drawing of the skirt so I switched it out for the skirt pattern from Simplicity 1419. Coincidentally the pleats actually matched the bodice seams pretty well!

With all the alterations I did I don’t think I’ll be making this pattern again but I would love to make more shirt dresses.. let me know in the comments if you have a shirt dress pattern that you love ♡

After wearing it out and due to my love of waist belts, I’m going to add belt loops at the side. And if I have enough material left I think I’ll even make a skinny drawstring belt like my inspiration dress 🙂

I’m excited to see everyones makes from the Ginghamalong! And hopefully add some new shirt dress patterns to my list 😛