So I hit a snag with the Burda dress- no zipper in the stash. While I was waiting to make a trip to the "local" (sixty some odd miles away) fabric store, I found a nice, dark wash stretch denim at my local Walmart of all places. (Yeah, apparently they can get nice denim, but they can't stock an invisible zipper in any color other than black or white.)
The denim came home with me, and I decided to go ahead and cut out McCall's 6279:
I fell in love with this pattern when it came out last year, but I never got a chance to make it up. Yes, I'm making the blue one with sleeves in the lower right corner. I had to make a FBA, lengthen the waist, and add an additional 3" of length to the skirt, which, as you can see in the photo, is drafted rather short. The sleeves, however, had to be shortened by 1" and the rather wide cuffs also had to be decreased by 1/2". (Just call me T-rex!)
Of course, it just wouldn't be right if I didn't run into some kind of problem with a project. Sigh... I cut out the whole dress, smug with myself for getting all the pieces cut with no fabric to spare. But when I carried everything back to the sewing room (I cut on my living room floor) I found, to my horror, that I had dropped the yoke and collar pattern pieces on the floor on my way to the living room and they did not get cut! And I had no more fabric!!! So the next day I made an emergency run back to Walmart, and thankfully they still had plenty of the same denim. I bought another 1/2 yard and pre-washed it and cut those pieces out later that night after work. How I missed them in the first place while I was laying everything out, I don't know. But all's well that ends well, right?
Everything is going smoothly now. I have begun putting things together and topstitching my seams:
I chose a khaki thread for the top stitching. I think it shows up great and looks good against the dark blue denim. Plus, it coordinates with both sets of buttons I bought for this dress- plain, dark blue plastic like the pattern drawing, and a prettier, more interesting antique brass look set. I will wait to decide which ones I will use until I at least get to the point I can try the dress on. Right now I'm leaning toward the antique brass, but they are only 3/4" and the pattern calls for 1" buttons. I'm afraid they may be too small.
I was finally able to get to the fabric store this past weekend, and I picked up a zipper for the Burda dress, so now I have two active projects going. Hopefully I will have at least one finished project very soon. It's been awhile since I've had one of those, and I've almost forgotten what it feels like!
Today is Friday, thank goodness, and I plan to get lots of sewing done this weekend. How about you? Any big sewing plans for the weekend?
