My First Shirt Dress

This is one of the great exemples of why I am sewing and wear what I sew: in my whole life I have found one, maybe two RTW shirts which were actually my size, i.e. fitting in the shoulder area, with breast space around my breast and waist line on my waist. My biggest fitting issue are always too large shoulders (and believe me, I do NOT have extremely narrow shoulders, I am just small in general) and a short torso, mainly between shoulders and breasts.

So having a shirt dress was just a wish, I could not even dream of becoming reality :o)

Throw in Butterick 6333, some fabric and some of my time and here we go, I have a perfectly fitting shirt dress which I love! I have bought this pattern some time ago already, but somehow did not get to sewing it, what a pity...

 Of all the shirt dress patterns, I chose this one because of the princess seams (aka easy fitting) and the fact that it is supposed to come in petite sizes as well.

Well, that one was a disappointment. There are actually no special petite adjustments on the pattern, apart from the skirt length. It is even missing the usual "shorten/lengthen here" lines. Therefore I did my usual adjustments on the length and everything worked ok.

I used a remnant of some stripy wool blend and I had just enough of the fabric to cut this dress, while being careful on stripe "matching". I even cut out the cuffs, but did not use them in the end, I prefer the look of the simple sleeves.

The wool is not so soft on the inside and I was afraid it was not stiff enough, so I interfaced it with a black coton-silk voile which worked magic, as usual; thisis really my secret weapon. It has added just the right amount of body for the skirt. The insides are probably not so perfect as I am used to, actually, I did not want to put in a lining (not sure if it is something to do with a shirtdress) and I was not quite sure on the seam finishing, knowing that there were 2 layers of fabric.

The dress has pockets which is always a nice feature and has this serious/cute vibe.

Seriously, I cannot understand why I have not sewn it earlier, I was probably scared by the shirt/collar thing, maybe the number of buttonholes. Whatever. When checking the pics, I am just thinking I need another one!