my flaming red dress!

I finally completed my latest project - the red dress I told you about in a previous post. 

   

   

I made quite a few alterations: In the pattern, the zipper was across the center front, so I moved it to the center back. Also, I omitted the slit at the center front and added white piping across the top. Finally, I made the topmost part of the front and back more narrow, so that the straps would be closer to the neck rather than to the shoulders. 


Here's the original pattern - Burda magazine of 5/2003 - 112A:

I am very happy with it! There was quite a lot of work on getting the fit right, and lots of fixing of errors when making the tops more narrow. But I think it came out great and I learned so much! I enjoyed the process and found out that I have much more patience than I thought I had. I especially enjoyed making the blind stitch at the hem by hand and for the facing of the front and the back.


Another challenge was that the instructions were in German - so I had to figure everything out myself! Not too difficult when you have enough experience and when you think about it a bit, but I'm still proud of myself!


What else have I learned? Well, I learned how to get a better fit. I learned that I need to make sure it fits well and not run off to sew the whole thing and check only at the end! But rather to check at every stage and check again and again after each correction until it is good. It is worth it! 


I learned that it is really difficult to pull closed an invisible zip in the center back by yourself! So I will prefer to put it at the side in future projects. 

I learned that my duct tape dress form was useless! It is much bigger than I am and proved no help at all.


I learned that piping is really neat, just like I thought! 

And that I like hand-finished blind stitched hems. They look so much better than a top-stitched hem.

I also learned that you don't get struck by lightning if you don't follow the pattern exactly! On the contrary. It comes out better if you put to use what you've learned from previous patterns (such as, sizing issues) and apply your good judgement and make alterations according to your personal preference.


So tell me what you think! Do you have any other tips or suggestions about getting a proper fit, or altering patterns? Or anything else that came to mind when you read this post?


The next post will be about my next 2 projects - two dresses that I will be making at my advanced sewing class.