Dragonfly Fantasia

Finally I am back to my sewing after a long hiatus. After the enormous amount of sewing I did for the School fete I needed a break. I had developed a really bad back from sitting at the sewing machine for hours on end and basically couldn't even look at my sewing machine without my back starting to moan.

For the past few weeks I have been tidying up my fabrics and perusing fashion mags which ignited a little spark that I had left somewhere.

We went to my in laws for a weekend so I packed up the sewing bag with some fabric from Tessuti and a pattern that looked fairly easy. I thought I would gently ease my way back into it.

The fabric is a gorgeous Italian digital printed ponti knit called "Dragonfly Fantasia" and the Pattern is Butterick 5559. The Pattern is a close fitting pullover dress with front and back darts and outside stitched tucks. The tucks conceal the darts and have beautiful sweeping lines meeting at the side seams. 

Once I laid the fabric out and started cutting I was away again, thoroughly enjoying the creative process.

A few things about the pattern. Make sure you thread trace all lines. Even though it is labelled as an easy pattern to sew (which it is) you must be very careful in tracing all of the lines. It took me at least an hour to do this but it was well worth it in the end and I have to say I actually enjoy thread tracing. I get a lot of satisfaction out of having perfect lines.

The fabric required size 90 stretch needles as I found out from a lot of frustrating attempts on scrap fabric. If you don't sew with stretch needles on ponti fabric you will most likely get skipped stitches. I tried ball point first as this is what I have used in the past but they didn't work this time. I think because this fabric has elastane in it. Just make sure you test on scrap fabric first.

The tucks are very easy to sew just make sure you tack first and not just rely on pinning. If you tack its very easy to keep nice straight even lines of sewing. If you just pin the fabric will most likely move while you are sewing resulting in uneven tucks.

I had to shave off about 1 cm from under the arm as the armhole was sitting to high under my armpit. I find this with a lot of patterns. Does anyone else seem to have this problem or do I just have low armpits?

The dress is very short. I am a petite 157cm and only turned up the hem about 2cm. If you were any taller I would suggest adding more hem allowance.


Once the tucks were sewn and lined up almost perfectly the dress was basically done. Just the side seams and hem and it was ready to wear.

The photo's were taken over the weekend at our friends "tree house" near Flinders beach. They have the most beautiful holiday house set in amongst a forest of pine trees making it the perfect setting for my dragonfly fantasia to debut.

This is a close up of the fabric which has dragonfly's, strange fairy creatures and flowers which border the hem.

I highly recommend the pattern and the fabric.

Butterick 5559