Butterick 2137 60s summer frock

Vintage Butterick 2137 in a 60s floral print…perfect for summer!

Yet another unfinished-project-busting Vintage Pattern Pledge dress… I have made a winter version of this dress in a black~charcoal plaid wool, ages ago, which is a favourite in the cooler months. When mum pulled out this fabulous piece of vintage cotton from the Nana Stash, I was inspired. Austin, not so much.

Here’s the original pattern.

The pattern is easy to work with, the fabric was less than two metres, about one and a half, so a lot of time went into the final pattern lay out. While there was enough for the main pieces, I was short facings, which I cut out from some plain white cotton, and gave the skirt a false hem, using a strip of white bias binding.

Please excuse the *slightly* wild hair, but look at my nana’s earrings!

This is fun to accessorise.

You might notice the neckline is quite different to that on the original pattern, which was a wide bateau, with or without an equally wide collar.

I had some trouble with getting a good fit for this neck line, I only really need to make one adjustment to patterns, and that is the hollow bust adjustment. When I started this, it was not enough to worry about, but I was reminded, my body changes over time, so I need to re-assess when re-working a familiar pattern like this.

My solution to this involved making two symmetrical pleats near the center, which became a “stylish design feature” of this version of the dress. I did nearly tear my hair out, as the more a played around with it, the more it distorted the fabric, exacerbating the problem…argh.

I love this dress! And I think I saved it! Thank goodness, I don’t think I’d ever come across fabric like this again.