I mentioned before that I was working on a dress. I am trying to sew up some of my stash fabric, and I decided that the nile blue mystery fabric with the fabulous drape (it's a bit more green in person) would pair nicely with Vogue V8285, which was also in my stash. I had already made a dress using this pattern, before I learned how to fit clothing properly. This time, it came out better -- just how I wanted it, without futzing the seams or ripping like a mad woman. For you sewists out there, I added 1 1/4" to the bodice pieces at the neckline for a modest overlap that hides my bra.
I added gathers at the back to deal with the extra fabric below my shoulder blades, to mimic the front, but I think darts would have been more successful.
I spent some extra time adding bias silk organza strips to stabilize the neckline and armscye, like I used on the sleeves of the Crepe dress. But these strips stared out 3/4" wide, before stretching.. I also hand-understitched these openings and hand slip stitched the skirt lining in.
I started hemming by hand, but ultimately used my machine's blind hem stitch for the first time. I learned that I should have turned the hem up more than 1/4" before turning it fo the final hem. I hemmed it up a whole 3 1/2" the second time, because I want to wear it for dancing. In fact, I decided to finish it so that I could wear it to the ball in Ann Arbor on Saturday. Dresses for serious dancing require much shorter hems to prevent tripping or being stepped on. Floor length is a no-go. I went ankle length, but I wanted to preserve the ability to let the hem out, which is why I made such a deep hem. This was a bit of a pain, because it required a lot of steaming to ease in the extra fabric. The final result was worth it, though. It worked beautifully at the ball, too.
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