Almost Finished with M5847

I am about 80% done with the shirt dress. I need to bind the armholes, topstitch the front and collar, work the buttonholes, and sew on the buttons. Hmm...make that 70% done...

I decided to go with the light gold/brown topstitching thread. Finding the ideal buttons is another thing. I went to a local craft store and found great buttons - but they were not machine washable. The assistant suggested that I hand-wash the garment. Yeah, that's not happening. I should be able to find something at JoAnn's 50% off sale this Sunday.

The most annoying part of sewing this dress involved slipstitching the facings. I can tolerate slipstitching small areas, but not the entire vertical length of a dress...twice...plus the collar and shoulders. My middle finger still hurts; there must be a better way. I'm thinking that I can postpone topstitching the princess seams until after the facing is sewn. That way, I can tack the facings down and topstitch all in one shot. I'll have to think about it more...

While I'm sure I can improve the fit, I'm not going to tinker with this dress any longer. Since I will likely sew it again, I will make the necessary adjustments in the next version. In fact, I've got an idea for the second version that I'm going to keep on lock for now. I don't want to get all excited only to have an epic fail in the end. =)

More dresses
Trinicity's dresses and Faye's sew along have really inspired me to sew more dresses. I have several in queue that I hope to sew before summer's end.

I'm jumping on the Donna Karan bandwagon with V1250 and V1220.

I tried on a version of this dress at Christine Jonson's open house.

It fit rather well with only a few minor adjustments needed.

McCall's 6279


Simplcity 2406


McCall's 5752

That's all for now. Until next time, be well!

L