But then I realised I had a dress-requiring occasion coming up and no dress for it. A burst of activity later and this was finished:
Thanks G for the nice dark blurred photos.
Things I like about this dress: the fabric, which is a lovely lightweight purple wool that I found reduced from €34 a metre to €10. I wanted to make a dress with it because I knew it would hang beautifully, and it does. Also, the whole thing is rather well finished, if I do say so myself. This is all down to well-judged use of the possibilities offered by the fab new machine. By well judged I mean, not like last time when I experimented excessively on a skirt with overlocking stitches and it was a terrible a mess. Just because one has a new thing does not mean it should be used indiscriminately. However, an invisible zipper foot is a fabulous and appropriate thing to use when sewing in an invisible zip. And a blind hemming foot produces a beautiful invisibly-stitched hem as long as you have enough hem allowance to fold it all up properly (yes, I am good at making mistakes just so I can learn from them next time).
Things I do not like about this dress: the fabric, which is wool and despite being lightweight is in fact too warm for the spring weather that has just arrived as if to torment me on finally finishing something I have been planning to make as a staple part of my winter work wardrobe since, yes, finding the stuff at a much reduced price in September. But it will still do for next year so I will get over it. The other thing is that having put a lot of effort into adjusting the bodice (see fiddling with pattern), I ran out of patience and didn't test run the skirt. As a result the dress is a bit too loose at the back - it could have done with taking in a couple of centimetres at about waist level, in the centre back seam. But no way am I going to unstitch it all to do that now. It's got room for manouevre.
And despite the minor drawbacks, it's getting plenty of use. I am in fact rather proud of my first proper project - from puzzling over how, where and why to adjust the pattern, all the way to wearing the finished thing.
I don't know whether it's good or bad (when will I find the time??) but it's re-fuelled my obsession with making dresses, which is where my sewing mania got started last year. Bring on the summery stuff next!
