Skittles Dress I

Our story begins with Butterick 4790. It's a reprint of a pattern designed in 1952 with modern sizing. I go in and out of vintage phases, and was in one when I bought this pattern. I was itching to make it as soon as I could, but I was in the middle of other projects that I couldn't stop. Around the same time, fabric.com (one of my fave fabric sites) had this fabric on sale:



That's Geeks Gone Wild's Pac-Man fabric. I had to have it! Had to! I just needed to decide which pattern I would use it for and then buy the appropriate yardage. I remembered that pattern and thought it would be perfect. The incongruity of a 50s dress meeting 80s pop culture was too good to pass up. I even had some mega-cute Ms. Pac-Man buttons made for me on Etsy. I was ready and raring to go, all I needed was the time to make the dress!

Well, my projects all finished up (after months, harumph), and I finally was back to sewing for myself. I kept going to that pattern and fabric and then shying away from it. Something was making me hesitate. Was it the humor of a 50s/80s matchup wearing thin? Was it the thought of trying to explain the humor daunting? Concern over how the fabric would look cut on the bias? I think what finally changed my mind was those damn buttons. They're made of polymer clay and probably shouldn't be put through the washing machine. Even washing the dress by hand would be a risky prospect. I began thinking of ways to make the buttons removable without having to re-sew them whenever I wore the dress (such as sewing the buttons to snaps, sewing them to a Velcro strip, etc.). Ultimately, I decided that if I had doubts about such awesome fabric, then this probably wasn't the pattern to go with. You can always re-use the pattern, but you can't re-use the fabric.

So with that idea shelved, there was the question of what fabric I should make the dress in. It just so happens that I had McCall's 6024 and fabric already purchased - AND both patterns used the same amount! I'm going to take this as kismet and sew the Butterick pattern in the second fabric. I can't find the fabric on the Joann's site, but it's black with lavender, pink, yellow, and green dots - which is why it reminds me of Skittles.

I can't eat Skittles because they have gelatin. (Or at least they used to. I haven't checked in a while.)

I also know regular Skittles don't have a pink flavor and the purple is dark, rather than light. But Skittles were the first thing that popped in my head, so that's what I'm sticking with.

So next time, I'll feature the actual sewing of the dress. I imagine that post will be shorter than this one.