Sewing from a pattern

Hey look, I made a dress! An actual, real dress that I can actually wear in everyday life! I made it from a pattern! It wasn't that hard! In fact, it wasn't hard at all! I read the instructions and followed them step-by-step and I made a dress that turned out pretty good!

There's a tie-belt that goes with this dress that I forgot to put on. And I have to try to ignore that the design is off-center on the bodice, otherwise I get twitchy.

Can we please ignore the massive scowl on my face? I was actually in the middle of a fit of rage while taking these pics. Why, you ask? Well, keep reading...

This shows the fit of the bodice a little better.

It's not perfect but it's an actual dress that I made from an actual pattern, which means I can make soooo many dresses from this pattern and the next one will be better than the first because I will have already had practice with this pattern!

SO WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS???

WHAT.

Same exact pattern, but this time it's about 2 sizes too big. The biggest problem is the bodice, which is too long, and too big. Also, the top edge of the front and back pieces didn't match up like they did on the first dress I made. I don't know how that happened. The only thing I did different was to line the dress, which made it too bulky--but that wouldn't have made it two sizes too big.

To fix it, I'll remove the bodice from the skirt and cut out the lining as much as possible (I don't want to completely dismantle the damn thing) and take it in at the sides, and then attach the skirt a couple of inches higher, and see if that fixes things.


The pattern is Simplicity 9909, which I picked up for a dollar at a local thrift store.

Pirate Wedding - Skirt 3 - FFFFFFFUUUUUUU

I sewed the open ends of my skirt together, stopping about 10" from the top so I could slip into it easily. Then I pinned the new valance so it adjoins its twin perfectly.

Pinned it along the length of the skirt, certain that it was straight all along. Well, it was straight.

But it wasn't even with the top edge of the skirt. It didn't meet up with its friend at the end like it should have. I DIDN'T MEASURE IT ALONG THE WAY LIKE I ALWAYS DO. It started out 11.75" from the top of the skirt, and ended up 14"-ish from the top.

My project for the evening is to pick out two rows of tiny stitches by the light of the fireplace, so I will feel like a pioneer lady. Of course I'm being nit-picky about my sewing of this costume after seeing the horrible things being sold in the thrift store a couple of weeks ago. So I sewed the fabric on with a 3/8" seam, and then went back over it and sewed the very top edge of that fabric down right along the edge. It looks awesome. Not so fun for seam ripping.

Okay, it didn't take me THAT long to rip the seams. After I did that, I pinned the valance to the skirt again, carefully measuring from the top every few inches. When I got to the end... still a lot of "underlap". Damn it.

But the good thing is? I didn't get ragey. Yay!