Finished Project: Butterick 9973

So a day later than normally scheduled, here's my finished plaid dress inspired by Peggy Olson.

I've been attempting to re-create this dress -

but I decided to leave the buttons out as they're just not worth it for this dress I think. However as you can see I did make the bow to hide my terribly matched plaid stripes!

The weather this week has been unseasonably warm, but as luck would have it when it came around to Saturday it had disappeared, typical! This did not deter me from having the photos taken in our lovely garden though.

The dress itself came out nicely although I had to cut roughly 2 or so inches from the hem as it came to my calves, although depicted as knee length on the cover?! This in turn made the kick pleat a lot shorter too, so that's something to remember for next time.

The neckline is also a little loose so I could probably do with shortening the bodice a little maybe?

I was also a little unsure of exactly when I would wear this, as it's not exactly a subtle print? But after looking over this pictures I think it would make a perfect work dress. I like it with my grey tights, and I have a green cardigan that would suit it too.

So that's it! Mad Men Challenge accepted and executed X2! I can't wait to see what everyone else has made. Thanks again Julia Bobbin for setting it up!

Butterick 9973: In Progress

As promised here are a few snaps of the dress in progress..

Ok so moment of truth, matching up the stripes was quite hard for me, especially as I didn't have a ton of fabric to work with, plus the skirt is gathered at the sides. Look at the waist line! Oh dear :(

Luckily I do have enough fabric left over to make a bow to cover the front like Peggy's!

All that's left is to shorten the length to just below the knee & hem.

Butterick 9973

So I have a confession.... I couldn't help myself!! I decided to take another stab at re-creating an outfit from Mad Men. After making my Peggy Olson skirt, as much as I LOVE it, I kind of felt like I should hang my head in shame at not being more creative with the challenge.

Bad seamstress.

So to make up for it I decided to try and create this dress..

For this I'm using Butterick 9973 which is from the 1960's and comes with a basic scoop-neck bodice and a choice of either a gathered or fitted skirt. 

Naturally, I'm using the fitted skirt, and the sleeves too.



To make this similar to Peggy's dress I'm using some plaid rayon that I got off Ebay. I will warn you now, I'm not really used to working with stripes in such a big way. Because of my serious lack of attention & inexperience I may have got some of the stripes slightly off from matching. But hey, you gotta start somewhere right?

So this isn't in the same colour scheme as Peggy's but you get the idea. I'll post some more photos of the dress in progress on Weds so you can all laugh! :)