Statuesque women deserve clothing that fits and flatters.
Have Sewing Machine, will sew to fit!
The Statuesque Shift Dress served as a wearable muslin. With one minor adjustment to waist length, a shirt dress was requested.
After visiting a few stores to verify shirt dress details, Simplicity 8014 and a light blue cotton stripe were selected. We opted for the curved hem (View D) and long sleeves.
Proportional statuesque women are best fit by lengthening the patterns in several locations.
Cutting out the pattern on a narrow stripe required careful painstaking attention to straight grain markings!
The pattern went together easily. Interfacings, collar band, cuffs and button plackets … I remember these!!!
Based on the shirtdresses in stores, top-stitching was required. And not just regular top-stitching. Top-stitching with contrast color thread.
So, no coffee.
New needle and white thread in the machine, top-stitching it was. Miles, of it (only had to redo a small portion!)
Note to all sewers and recipients of sewn garments – take a close look at topstitching and other details on ready made clothes – they are far FAR from perfect!!!
After adjusting the buttonhole placements, I realized this dress required 15 buttons (and buttonholes!)
I prefer buttonholes made with the Singer buttonhole attachment. It produces uniform buttonholes with a nice finish.
Oddly, the Button Stash did not contain 15 appropriately sized and colored buttons.
It is an inexplicable mystery. I hope there is a investigation soon. Buttons seem to have suffered from a bizarre price mismarking – on a national level.
To avoid taking out a second mortgage, simple buttons were selected.
Note to self: Press dress prior to photographing – and stop with the dry cleaning hangers! Tie belt around dress for photo to give illusion of waist shaping.
I hope to have a photo of the beautiful statuesque women wearing the dress to post soon! A second shirtdress has already been requested!
The Destashification Project 
Completely agree.Not only have buttons been mispriced nationally, most are horribly boring. I’ve been buying from Etsy and Ebay both vintage and new.
The Singer buttonholes attachment is a marvel. I use mine in preference to my expensive computerised machine.
The button pricing problem exists here in the UK too. Scandalous.
Your comment about buttons made me laugh. It’s not just a national mis-pricing problem, it’s international! Still the statuesque shirt dress is great, even unironed. And also, I’d like to point out that the shorter contingent have to do all these alterations too, but with removals rather than additions to patterns 🙂
Great detailing–this pattern has been on my to-make list for ages. About the buttons 😀 My husband worked in Asia for the last 11 years and they were SO cheap! The SAME buttons–just in bins, not on cards. I suppose I was where most all the buttons are born
Love, love, love this shirtdress! We have a button crisis here too at Rancho Carroll.