I made a Dress......

So let me start this off my saying that I am not anything like Sara when it comes to dresses. This is to say that if someone gave me fabric and said "make a whole new wardrobe in one night" I would probably wear togas for awhile!! I just don't know how she does it. When I hear about the Sis Boom Rebecca shift, I thought I might give it a try. So here's my story!!

The fabric: I had this fabric from earlier in the summer when I would be teaching in TX and have my own classroom. The fabric was meant to be used for curtains!! I thought I would use this because I already had it and I had enough of it. I also used some leftover sky blue I had for the belt and neckline and I ended up using it for bias on the bottom because it was kind of short. Here it is before the back was done!

I thought that the directions were really clear and even though there were a TON of pages, it was easy to figure out what pages I needed to print and use. I definitely took advantage of the Frankenpatterning. My measurements spanned 4 dress sizes. The pattern said to add pleats to make things line up right. So I originally made the pleats in the front....big mistake! made a nice ledge. So I took them out and added them to the back (there is already one). This put said shelf in the back.....big surprise! Here is the shelf

So what I ended up doing is figuring out how much shorter I had to make the bottom of the top so that it would be the same length as the belt. It was 2 inches too long so I needed to take in an inch on each side. Instead of adding another pleat, I just made the original pleats bigger. I added an inch more to each one like this...

The middle 2 marks are where the original pleat was supposed to be and I went a half inch farther out on each side (which equals an inch) and did the pleat that way. It worked out soo much better. I did the bottom the same way. See, no more shelf!!

Ignore the bulge in back as I was slightly twisted when this was taken! (I promise!!)

The other thing I did different was installing the zipper. The whole glue stick thing just made a mess for me. I understand why the author put it in there, especially for someone with no zipper experience, but I did fine just lining it up on my own. 

My goal was to have a dress what came just above the knee but the dress ended up shorter than that so instead of hemming it, I made some bias and used that on the bottom. I would definitely recommend making it longer in the first place. It is always easier to make it shorter later! 

After making the first one, I decided to try it again with some jersey fabric I had. I made it the same way but with a jersey needle. (and I made the bottom longer!)

Don't you just love the shiny metallic of the fabric!!??

The nice thing about the jersey is that the edges are easier to finish.I just tucked them under and zig-zag sewed them. 

One other problem I had with both dresses was the arm hole. Majorly too big! I pinched them in to where I wanted them to be and sewed until they gradually met the original seam line. I meant to take pictures of this but forgot until it was too late.....sorry Sara!!

All in all, I think this is a great beginner project and I would love to try some other patterns like this to see what I can do. Now I think that I will go back to  quilting my blankets that are for Christmas gifts. If I am lucky, I will have them done by New Years! Thanks for hosting this Sara and best of luck to everyone sewing this and any other dress pattern out there!!