B6351 with sea turtles.

Butterick 6351 done!

I made the longish dress version (with the bottom band) and changed a lot of it on the way (and am still planning on adding a dart when I get home!

I didn't do a real muslin, but I did baste the main pieces together since I suspected I'd have serious issues with how this design would look with my slightly stiff cotton batik fabric. Looking at the other reviews, I wasn't alone! In my case, I chose to completely recut the skirt portion, using a pencil skirt pattern I had and leaving just a tiny bit of ease at the top so that it still made some sense to have elastic in the skirt. Fortunately, the original skirt piece was just a couple of huge rectangles, so I had plenty of room to make a darted version.  The dirndl style would probably work with a much more fluid fabric.  In my case, it looked like an uncomfortable paper bag!

 I also was aghast at the position of the waist, so I chose to add a wider band to both the front and back portion of the dress. This also allowed me a slightly wider design element for the elastic in the back, so I made about 5 channels and stitched down a bit of elastic in all of them. This makes the dress WAY cozy around the waist, like one of those smocked ones you can get. I'd already overdyed a bit of the fabric to use as a darker bottom band, so this just complemented that.   Looking at the photos, I don't really like the way the turtles are cut off and wish I'd found a coordinating plain fabric instead.  Ah well.

I didn't follow their instructions for assembling the bodice - I sewed it like you'd normally sew a lined bodice, leaving the armholes free, turned and finished the whole thing and then just topstitched the flaps at the shoulders. I also ended up topstitching the back side bits to my waistband instead of their slightly more finished, but very fiddly, approach. I hand-picked the zipper since that is my new favorite approach, but have a bit of a mismatch at the waist seam. The crazy print in my fabric is reasonably forgiving.

After all that, I'm wearing it today and feel over-exposed, so I'm planning to take a small tuck in the bottom of each of the back flaps, and may just stitch the opening closed all the way. I've got a couple paperclips on there right now (and a sweater, since this isn't really an appropriate back design for work!) to test it out.

Front:



Back: