Another Holiday Dress Fail

Last year, I made a dress that I had planned to wear to my office holiday party.  JB (bless him) thought it was too short - so I called it a fail and made a different dress to wear to the party.  

This year's holiday dress is a fail for similar reasons.  When I saw Mrs. Hughes' Jenny Lee Dress back in November - I wanted it hard!  I had the pattern - Simplicity 1459 - in my stash.  In fact, it was in a bag of patterns that I had rotated out to mail away.  I pulled that sucker back out quick.  Within a couple days - I received an email from Fabric.com where there fabrics with metallic were on sale.  Game on!!

I ordered 6 yards of this fantastic red and silver cotton and got the end of the bolt!  I set about to make the dress.  I traced the bodice and made a muslin - I really wanted the long sleeve.  - had bust gaping and couldn't move my arm.  So I made some changes and made muslin #2 - still couldn't move my arm.  HUH?  I've never had this be an issue before.  Did a few more things which still weren't right and then went back to the original pattern (this is why I trace!), traced a new bodice, did a small sway back adjustment and a small full bust adjustment - made one more muslin and I could move my arm in the short sleeve s I carried on!

Working under a bit of a time constraint - trying to get done for Christmas was not my friend.  Especially when I decided that JB needed a new shirt at the same time.  I would put about an hour in the evening working on both projects.  I did not make the self-imposed Christmas deadline - so figured I'd aim for our anniversary (it was 20 this year!) and missed that because of a stupid mistake.

See that lovely collar?  Yea - you need to trace the sewing lines, not just sew around the seamlines following the cut line.  And when you do that - don't go forward trimming and grading and pressing the seams.  And don't carry forward with putting it on the bodice.  It's wrong - stop while you are ahead!  So, when what I really wanted to do was chuck it - I carried it on the bus and ripped the collar from the facing and bodice and fixed it!

Then I set it aside to finish JB's shirt.  When I got back to working on my dress - I was posting photos on InstaGram as I went.  It wasn't until I had made beautiful buttonholes and cut them open that I realized my mistake!  The good news is most people won't notice.  Unless you are Maris who commented on the instagram post of the buttonholes - 'Girls are always "right" and boys are "left" out!'  {I'm totally stitching that and framing it for my sewing space!}

But other than issues caused by user error and timing - this dress is a win!  I love this dress.  I feel fancy wearing it!

The hem looks uneven in these photos - but I swear it's not.  I'm also standing on a slope in the yard.

I think my favorite feature is the pockets I put in.  There is a pocket in front of the side zipper!  The cotton is soft and drapey.  I've worn it twice since I finished it - once to go see Dirty Dancing live and just this past weekend on Valentine's day - I mean when else can you wear a glittery red dress?

I'm hoping next year's Holiday dress won't have any fail in it at all!