Friday, December 9, 2011

I needed something to wear

As I was in my room selecting my wardrobe for my all so needed holiday vacation my mother called. As always, I was happy to speak with her. Before she got off the phone she said "Don't forget to bring clothes for church!" I assured her that I wouldn't forget... In my head I was saying "YIKES, I don't have anything to wear!!!" Being in the military, church clothes are often times the farthest thing from my mind when I go shopping. Most of the time I'm just looking for something that I can lounge in because, lets face it, I don't have time to go to church! (I'm alllllllllways working... even on Sunday...)

I decided to make something so I took a trip to Wal-Mart and got a pattern. The dress is coming along nicely. It has a ruffled collar but the dress itself is pretty basic. It has a total of 10 darts (6 on the bodice and 4 on the skirt). The bodice is also lined! This is my first time putting a lining on the bodice section and it hasn't proven to be difficult... yet...

To be honest, this is going to be the first project that I've finished in a long time!!!! I usually don't have time to finish projects, or I just don't like it sooooo... I drop the ball on it. But, I liked this pattern a lot and made time to finish it. It's been about a week now because I've been working little by little every day.

So with out further ado...... here come the pictures!



These are the pictures that are shown on the front cover. The pattern is made by McCalls and it was designed by Laura Ashley. I liked it because of the ruffles on the neck. I am NOT making this dress in pink. Although pink is a fan of me... I'm not a fan of pink. I chose a cute printed cotton fabric which is primarily grey. ( In the next update ill post pics of the fabric... sorry)




For the ruffles I decided to go with a white chiffon. The pattern only calls for one layer of fabric for these pieces but I wanted them to be more voluminous so I made each piece with two layers of fabric.
I wanted to skimp so bad and leave the seams on the inside of the ruffles unfinished but i decided to finish them by using a french seam... This almost killed me because I created sooooooooooooo much more work for myself.  All in all, they came out nicely!


When it was time to gather the neck pieces together (in this case pattern piece 5 and pattern piece 6) I found that I preffer to hand baste instead of machine baste. It makes the gathering process easier! Can you tell the difference?





So far the most time consuming part of this project was putting all of the ruffles together and attatching them to the bodice. Putting the lining together was a breeze and so was putting the bodice together. Im excited that its almost done! All I have left now is putting it all together and inserting the zipper! YAAAAY