Ponte Knit Dress with Knit Lining

Pattern: Butterick 5677 (OOP)

The dress is designed as a close fitting lined dress with cap sleeves, front and back seam details and exposed zipper.

 

This Butterick pattern specifically requires use of moderate stretch knits: double knits, ponte knits and jerseys and a knit lining using tricot or poly knits. For the body of the dress I used fabrics I had in my stash. The cream houndstooth printed double knit I had picked up at Joann fabrics years ago and the solid black contrast is from more remnants of my beloved ponte knit. For my lining fabric I sourced a nylon spandex stretch knit lining from Michael Levine.

Pattern Adjustments: I drafted a full sleeve pattern from the existing pattern cap sleeve and added the sleeve length I desired. I adjusted for broad back and square shoulder. This adjustment spanned across  the 3 interconnecting raglan shoulder pieces because of the blocking of the design; in the end I achieved my back width alteration however the additional pieces made it more challenging than a standard back block pattern. Additional adjustments were made to shorten the torso length, raise the hip line and shorten the skirt.

Look how messy the pattern pieces got from all the adjustments!

The most challenging aspect of the dress was matching the houndstooth print in my limited yardage. Aligning the print perfectly along the curved hip panels was next to impossible, but I tried my best.

The center back was slightly more achievable across the zip. I also elected to modify the exposed zip for an invisible; I felt there was plenty of other design detailing on the dress with the seaming and my addition of a print and an additional visual aspect of a zip would  be over kill.

Knit lining fabric is a finicky fabric, as soon as it was cut the cut edge of the knit structure wanted to unravel. I powered through and stitched the lining the moment it was cut so it did not have a chance to alter.

Inner garment view front and back:

Neither interfacing  nor facings were used to stabilize the neckline in this dress pattern.  Understitching the neckline did not stop the slinky knit lining from wanting  to slide to the garment exterior. To fix the issue I stitched in the ditch along  the seam lines that intersected the neckline. For the most part this trick was not visible but in the photo above  you can see my stitching, it was too far from the ditch. I will have fix that prior to the next wear!

I completely enjoy the heft of this lined knit dress, it will serve me well during my current breezy spring and reappear in my wardrobe rotation in the fall and carry me through to winter.