Close Encounters of the Third Time!

The Facts

Fabric:         Cotton Gauze $3 a yard (3 yards)

White Cotton lining ($1 a yard) (3 yards)

Patterns:         Amy Butler Cabo Halter (from stash)

New Look 6774 ($ 5 on sale!!!)

Notions:          14 inch invisible zipper ($1) Hook and eye

Time to complete: lost track 
(but once the top part was decided like 3 hours!)

First worn: July 2011


Wear again? Hells to the yeah!

Total Cost: $7

So . . . I have been seeeewwww behind.  Not that I haven’t been sewing.  Quite the opposite.  But have I posted about it?  Ummm . .. that’s another story. So, this is my first official post back and will post pictures of embellishment, Ascot races, red white and blue, pillow cases and ultimate summer dress.  I will.  Promise.  Speaking of the Ultimate summer dress . . . Well, that became my UFO for this week.  When that challenge came round I jumped on it!  I loooove summer and summer dresses!  I don't typically wear shorts but flowy dresses,  oh yeah!  I had ambitions of silk and breezy flowy fabric and oceans and and mojitos and  . . . MAXI DRESSES!!!!!  I took some inspiration from Anthropologie and net-a-porter and several vintage 70's patterns floating out there on the interwebs. (Tons of information out people, but I digress)

I finally settled on some white gauze I found on sale at the Hancock.  Fun, flowy and would be cool on those humid Chicago days.  Has anyone every sewn with gauze?  Well it stretches a bit.  It stretches when you cut it.  It pulls when you sew it.  It stretches when you coax it into a happy sewable place.  Did I mention that it stretches?  Not huge obstacles, but noteworthy.

I found a New Look pattern similar to what I wanted but wasn't sold on any of the bodice choices.  So for the first go (I say first cause there were several) I used a triangle type top from a nightie I liked. The result was a little too va va voom.  Nothing wrong with va va voom but didn't want to worry about said va va voom going va va everywhere every time I wore my ultimate summer dress.  So I scrapped it.  2nd try.  Let's give the actual pattern a whirl.  (this is when i should have listened to my inner sew goddess whisperings and do a mock up.  oh well. . .)  This went together fairly smoothly.  There was some language in the instructions where i was like Whaaat???  Do that now?  That makes no sense.  Always listen to your inner sew goddess!!!  The result on this go round was waaay off.  Even though I took the bodice pattern from my bust measurement it was waaaay too big everywhere and honestly I wasn't crazy on the bodice top pattern anyway.  This too was scraped.  Argh!  My ultimate summer dress went into a pile.

Enter the UFO 2 challenge!  Yay!!!!!  I finally was going to conquer this dress.  I loved the material even with the stretch factor and dag nab it, I wanted to finish my maxi dress.  But what kind of top???  I suddenly remembered I had the cabo halter pattern in my stash.  I am a huge fan of the halter and apparently was a common factor in my 70's maxi dress research. I decided to give that a whirl.  This time I did a muslin of the whole damn thing (that went together in like 1 hour and a half ) and decided this was it.    Added 

bonus:  the notches and side seams matched the skirt notches and side seams.  Hmmm . . . Kismet? maybe?  I kept the gathering on the skirt portion and did a small SBA adjustment on the cabo halter and quickly while I still had steam cut out another top from left over portions of scraped bodice versions.  I put it all together,  installed the invisible zipper (with matching seams!!!  Thanks Angela Kane!)  and held my breath while I put it on.  IT FIT!!!!  Yay!!!!!! Whew!!!  But Yay!!!!  I think I might even wear it today to a beach party!!!!  There's my summer talking!!!!  Another yay!!!!

My biggest lesson here??  ALWAYS do a muslin mock up!  Do not skip this step.  At least with me.  A muslin mock up will save you hours of seam rippage, headache, and frustration.  Just do it!  Make it part of the lesson.

And  . . . listen to your inner sewing goddess.  Things alot better when you do!  Happy Fourth everyone and happy  sewing bliss.