In the Nick of Time

Looks like I won't be naked at the graduation. ;-) Here's the finished dress (B5488). And I was in bed by 1 AM (usual time for me).



Overall, I'm happy with it. I'm not 100% thrilled with the repeat of the large motif down my center front but that's a fabric issue that I had no control over so I'll live with it. If *I* had been designing the fabric, I would've spread out those large flowers more. But no one asked me. ;-)

It's very bright, isn't it? (That's bright orange in case your monitor is reading it as red). I'm planning to wear some orange sandals with it. That is, IF the UPS man delivers them before we leave. The tracking says they're out for delivery so fingers crossed. Yes, I procrastinated on ordering my shoes too. ;-) If they don't make it or don't fit, I'll wear either white or black sandals I already have. UPDATE 10:15 AM: They're here and they fit!

I used a coordinating print for the neckband and I also added sleeve and hem bands using this same print. I didn't want the neckband to get entirely lost in the print and I think this slight contrast works well.





As I mentioned earlier, for the muslin I did not make any alterations to the pattern other than blending to a larger bottom-half size. For the final dress, I tweaked the neckband by pinching out a very small "dart" on both the front and back pattern pieces, to tighten up the neck opening without affecting the seam where the pieces attach to the dress body. I knew this tiny alteration would stop me from fiddling with the neckline all night.

After evaluating the muslin, I decided I would sew the top seam of the raglan sleeves with a smaller seam allowance near the edge to give me a little more bicep room. Instead, for the final dress I just added that little bit on in fabric when I cut the pattern. Same affect but without the need to remember to sew a different seam allowance. One less thing to remember when you're sewing to a deadline is a Good Thing. Don't ask me about forgetting to cut the back On Fold so now I have a useless and pretty much invisible CB seam. ;-)

I ended up adding 6 inches in length to the bottom of the dress, some of that extra length is the 3" hem band. I added 1-1/2" to the sleeve pattern pieces and also added a 1-1/2" hem band, for a total of about 2" additional length on the sleeves after subtracting seam allowances.

Here's what my sewing table looked like when I finished last night (and still looks like now). Not too bad, right? Lots of other crap I need to put away, though, that is entirely unrelated to this dress. And I see my Stars & Stripes project peeking out from under the muslin bolt on the left. Poor neglected quilt. But I have a dress to wear!