Dress in Progress

Good Lord, did somebody throw up on my dress form?! Oh, wait, that's the back of the dress - it's not really THAT shiny, but I told you it would be a surprise!

Let's talk about my awful zipper application. Now I've done fly-front zippers in pants, and invisible zippers in Mardi Gras dresses, but I'm not used to a straight-forward centered zipper. The pattern tells you to stitch the center back seam up to the small dot, then press the 5/8" seam allowance up to the neck, then, "Slide the zipper right side up under the seam allowance and topstitch." I'm serious. There was no "baste the seam closed and press seam allowance open," no "unzip the zipper and stitch the right tape to the right seam allowance," no nothing! Now, of course the zipper came with detailed instructions, but I was feeling the simplicity of the Simplicity, so I just pinned, basted, and topstitched...which was the wrong thing to do, as evidenced by my horrible wrinkles. I did go back and fix that glaring pucker in the blue, but next time I'll do the whole thing by the rules.

And here's the front. I TOLD you there would be a diamond over something, and the hoo-hah wins! Do you see how I carefully raised the fabric so the diamonds at the shoulders would not be right over the boobs? (This placement does highlight the ovaries, although you could argue that those are kidneys.)

I just attached the neck facing and pressed it under to see what it was going to look like - I haven't undersewn or anything. I like the keyhole.


You're supposed to attach a button and loop to close the top - we'll see. I also have to attach the sleeves.

So I think this is going to be really cute, but the REAL fabric will be even cuter. I may have to wear this at Lake Martin when we do the big family trip in July. (We will now pause for the backlash from my family...)