January’s Dress

I just don’t want to make weather appropriate dresses, do I?  Here is another spring/summery dress that I have made and it is probably the coldest month of the year.  Maybe I secretly love the super hot, humid summers, and it is so secret that even I don’t know about it.  My dress making choices seem to imply that at least.

This was not the dress I originally intended to make though.  I was going to do another July style dress, but this time with the other bodice from the pattern.  This was the material I was going to originally use, however.  It was my super cheap, practice material that turned into a pretty nice, wearable dress.

I was out one day with a friend and stopped into Joanne’s really quickly to see what kind of goodies were on the sale tables.  Oh, happy day!  The Simplicity patterns were 5 for $5.oo, so I finally got to get all of the ones that I have been eying, this pattern included:

This dress was so easy to make.  It took me three Sundays to complete it, but I really could have done it in one day.  The first day, I only cut out the pattern.  The next week it would have been done, but I didn’t have the right sized zipper, so the third day was for the finishing touches.

After my last couple of dresses having way to much extra to cut off towards the end, I went with a smaller size, and it was perfect.  The instructions called for a lapped zipper, and you know what, it was easy and came out great in only one go.  I had more than enough thread, thank you mom for all of the colorful serger spools, but I did run the machine thread that I used for top stitching and hemming down to almost the end.  It was my first time top stitching, so a few of my lines were a little less than straight when I first got started.  This was only because I didn’t line my presser foot up with the seam like I should have.  I will probably fix these once I get some more thread for that, or maybe not.  They really don’t look that bad.

I didn’t do the version with sleeves as much as I really wanted to.  I am having issues putting in my own sleeves lately, and I wanted a stress free sewing experience with this project.  I came across an online sew-a-long for this pattern, and she has a sleeve tutorial I think will help me.  I know I will have another one of these dresses in the not too distant future.  And I am gonna make it with the contrasting top next time as well.

Front partial view and you might just be able to see that top stitch mess up… Oops.

partial view of the back lapped zipper

From this angle, my top stitching doesn’t look that bad.

Full back view

Any other sewists made this dress yet?  What did you think?  Leave me a link, if you have, I would love to check it out.

Now, I need to go figure out how to oil my serger.  It was sounding kind of weird toward the end of making this dress, and I am sure it is well over due for a little TLC.

*Linking up with: The Modest Mom Blog