Off to the Races // Butterick B6094

As mentioned earlier the fabric I used was from Gertie's collection though I'm not 100% sure what it actually is. I've seen the same print online listed as being cotton sateen but there's no way on earth that what I was working with was cotton. It's quite sheer and doesn't breathe well (I learnt this the hard way). It looks beautiful though so I don't care. However, if Spotlight had it in cotton sateen though I'd have jumped on that.

The pattern was pretty straightforward. I've always found Butterick patterns to be pretty clear in their directions. The only part that I found a little bit funny was the way it had you stitch together the shoulder seams. It worked but it was fiddly, and I just felt that there were easier and simpler ways that it could have been done (and that didn't involve me having to break out my horrific hand-sewing skills).

I cut a straight size 6 which, from Butterick, fits me perfectly 90% of the time. I only have one fit issue with the finished dress and I think it might be to do with the fabric. It doesn't take to pressing very well and also puckers and stretches a little strangely. As a result it doesn't quite sit right across my chest, wrinkling a little, and the darts kind of stick out making it look like I have weird little haphazard nipples. The only alteration I made was to stitch up my own skirt to go with the bodice. Seeing as my fabric was a border print it I knew it wasn't gonna fly with the skirt included with the pattern. Here's a fun fact: the skirt I made is 3 and a half meters long. If you're not down with the metric system I'll just summarise by saying, that's pretty darn long. Not only that, but I hand-stitched the entire hem. It was my first blind hem and it took forever but it's so pretty.

The seams are all finished French style and there's a not-so-invisible zipper up the back. I went through a phase a while back where I was just nailing my invisible zippers. 60% of the time they worked every time. I seem to have left that phase now. I don't know what went wrong. Also one seam on the back doesn't line up and it is almost life-ruining.

The pattern is beautiful and I will sew it again. In fact, I'm already planning another project with it. Here's three keywords as a sneaky clue: denim, jumpsuit, Beatles. Make of that what you will.


The races themselves were great. I'd never been before...and I won $11! Big spender! It was miserable and grey this morning when we were taking our photos, but by the time we got to the racecourse it was sunny as ever. I got a pretty nasty sunburn (in spite of reapplying my sunscreen every hour!) so I'm going to have to get used to looking at it, because those red spots will hang around for the next 4 months! That or they'll peel off and I'll be even whiter than I was before. It's a curse.

I also managed to take this cool video of the last race!