Corduroy Shirt Dress

Dress to match the sky

B5526

This pattern is my TNT Butterick 5526. This time, I again opted to lengthen the shirt into a dress and I used view A with the front pockets as the base. The sleeves are full length and I did not put in the sleeve tabs. I do find myself wearing long sleeves rolled and unrolled throughout the day. I also opted to leave off the collar and only used the collar band. Inseam pockets were added as I missed these on an earlier version of the dress.

The blue corduroy fabric is from Lillian and while it had quite a few stains or imperfections throughout, fortunately, there was about 6 yards of material to work with while cutting. I tried to cut around as many flaws as I could, but I had to incorporate several marks in (hopefully) somewhat inconspicuous places.

Very difficult to photograph the true color, but imperfections are visible

Originally, I did cut out a collar, but in the end I did not use it.

Collar I ended up not using and rust stains on selvedge

For sewing the dress together I set up two machines. My Bernina 1230 for seams and my Bernina 717 for the top-stitching. I did audition several colors for the top-stitching, but ended up not thrilled with anything I had on hand and made a trip to Vogue to pick up a matching blue color.

3 options that did not get chosen

The pattern starts with sewing up the front pockets. I changed the square shape by taking off the bottom corners. This made the pockets a bit smaller and took very little extra time.

For this picture the pockets are two different lengths, I fixed that

The rest of the dress went together quickly. For the side seam pockets I tried to put them in myself the first time, but had to take them out and watch a short how-to video on YouTube before I finally got them inserted correctly. To help them lay a bit flatter, I top-stitched the front of the pocket opening. The fabric for the pockets is out of the scrap bin and is an old pair of floral sheets. The little blue flowers match the dress perfectly.
I had planned to use some buttons out of my stash, but there was nothing in the box that had enough of the same button to do both the front placket and the cuffs. A trip to Vogue provided buttons that matched extremely well in color.

Plenty of buttons to finish this project

At first, I had the buttons spaced at 2.5 inches apart, but when I compared this to a RTW shirt I found that I could move them out to 3.5 inches apart.

2.5 inches apart

Buttonholes were done on the Singer 201, as usual and I used the same blue thread as had been used for the top-stitching. When it came time to sew on the buttons though, I had a bit too much help.

Pet me instead of sewing on buttons

The buttons were sewn on by hand and I opted not to put any on the front pockets. I don't keep anything in front pockets and they don't need to fasten closed.

Most of the pictures of this dress were taken at work and clearly, I do not do very well with the tripod and timer.  Here's the best of the bunch. 

Dress was ironed before I drove to work

Love having pockets

Back view

Front pockets and buttons looks great

Inside of pocket

One pic at the end of the day

This dress was very comfortable all day. The fabric is soft and lightweight and it feels like wearing pajamas. I hope it will transition well to cooler weather in a few weeks. I plan to pair it with leggings and a scarf.