It’s Jungle January again!  Thanks so much Anne for giving us the impetus to get our foliage or animal print out.  My contribution is the Flutter tunic/dress by Papercut Patterns.

Yes, I jumped on the Flutter bandwagon. I had been resisting, but then they had a sale, and my twitchy finger twitched. I know that I have plenty of patterns in stash, and many could have been adapted to be like this one, but I took the fast and easy option.  This dress was one of my Frocktails contenders, but was not the dress that I eventually decided to wear. Now it’s hanging in the cupboard just waiting for the right opportunity. I need some more semi-formal functions to go to!

I cut size Medium. There are only three main pattern pieces. The front, cut on the fold, the back, cut with a centre back seam, and the sleeves. The neck edge is finished with binding. The centre back seam allows for a nice finish at the centre of the V back neckline. And what a shock, I remembered that the centre back seam would also allow for a short back waist alteration! So I made one! And while I was slashing patterns, I thought it might be a good idea to also make a FGA (full gut alteration) which was essentially an FBA to the tummy area of the front pattern piece.

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed that the sleeves look a little different to the body of the dress. I decided to use the reverse of the fabric (it came from Darn Cheap Fabrics and is a woven jacquard, most likely polyester) for the sleeves, and the reverse for the binding. I made my own bias tape, half with one side as the right side and half with the other. The neck was bound with a contrasting side of bias binding before the centre back V was sewn. This gives a very sharp V. I topstitched all the bias binding from the right side a millimetre or so from the seam that attached it.

I also chose to bind the hem edges of the sleeves and the skirt. It adds a nice detail and wasn’t difficult to do. I often prefer to use binding on curved edges rather than just turning and hemming, although I often use the binding a little like a facing. For all of these edges I bound the seam allowance completely like binding the edges of a quilt, rather than treating the binding like a facing.

The shoulder shaping in this pattern is rather unusual. The shoulders are dropped, but are also shaped and follow the curve of the shoulder. I have fairly sloping shoulders, and this works out okay for me, but if you had stronger or squarer shoulders then you might want to consider altering the shaping there. It is definitely not typical.  It sits very nicely with arms by your sides, but can do strange things when you lift them.

The shoes come from the same warehouse as the ones in the previous few posts. They are Django & Juliette and are definitely lots of fun! I really like interesting shoes, but often have problems finding ones that are comfortable. This brand are quite wearable for me despite having a bit of a heel. Well, as long as I am not going walking in them all day.

I count this dress as a success, and think that my relatively minor alterations have been positive ones. The length is as per the pattern, which on my 158cm frame is quite okay.  I think that this pattern works well with a fabric that is rather structured, like this one, and can support itself rather than collapsing down.