The column dress

This is last year’s make.  It was an experiment.  The fabric was “inherited”.  The colour – a rather boring cross between navy and dark grey (and a bit of brown?).  Could be part wool.  Could be who knows what.  Sent it through the washer and dryer.  It survived, though it did become a little fuzzy/pilly.  For an experiment and for every day wear it would do.  As for a pattern, I opted to just lengthen Butterick 5948 (OP?).  The inspiration were various column-type dresses that I had seen on various sites.  It’s very comfortable.  (It’s a sack, for heaven’s sake!)  It’s warm.  It can be layered over a turtle neck, a t-shirt or whatever.  No closures – just a placket to make it easy to pull over my head.

  Facings on the outside.  The sleeves were a bit wide, so I opted to just fold the hem, put in a buttonhole and button. 

 Absolutely needed pockets.  They’re just one-layer in-seam pockets that were stitched down through the top layer. 

 Decided on a shirt-tail hem.  And then there was the issue of some sort of reinforcement at the stress points, i.e. top and bottom of pockets, as well as the top of the shirt tail.  Bar tacks would have been just too boring.  Stitched arrowheads weren’t looking right with the thread options that I had.  Came up with these little triangles of a cotton print that I stitched down by hand. 

  It’s somehow satisfying to have some hand sewing to do to finish up a project.  Overall, the experiment worked quite well.  Very comfortable (did I say that already?).  Very wearable for every day.  On the down side – it wrinkles, picks up dog hair as well as any lint brush (is there such a thing as dog-hair-proof fabric?)  Do I need another variation on this theme?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  I still haven’t decided whether it’s worth sacrificing “good” fabric for a similar dress.

Bad face day and the dress isn't hanging smoothly - oh well.

 One more attempt at self-photography, because as bad as it is, you then don’t have to imagine how I look in it.