Skeleton dress: finished!

     Hooray, the skeleton dress is officially done! Here's the finished result, plus a number of gratuitous detail shots because why not.

      Accessorized with -of course- my bow belt, which I wear with literally every dress I own. 

    
     Here are some close-ups of the nice piping at the neckline and the sleeves (also a good opportunity for you to get uncomfortably familiar with my armhairs. Whatever man, we're related to monkeys). Full disclosure: I did the piping on the neckline once, thought I did such a good job, then found a place where the serging on the other side had rolled a bit and was visible from the outside. This was on...Sunday, I think, aka the day that I was in a really rotten mood because I had fallen down the stairs the day before, so my butt and my pride were hurting. You know what's surprisingly not a good thing to work on when you're already in a rotten mood and feel your temper shortening every second? A hobby that's really easy to screw up and involves a high probability of stabbing your fingers repeatedly with pins. Don't sew on a bad day. Maybe work on perfecting your waffle recipe instead or something. So, long story short, I was really upset about my perfect neckline piping not actually being perfect, so my mom took it out and redid it for me to keep me from jumping out the window, breaking my legs on impact and becoming a burden on my family. Thanks Mom!

     And here we have a detail shot of the zipper, purely because I was proud of how well it lined up at the top. Zippers are pretty tricky (for mere beginners like myself, at least), so if the zipper pull doesn't end up on the inside I'm usually pretty happy. When I actually get it lined up nicely so I don't end up having to put a hook and eye at the top though, it's like sprinkles on the cake (I'd say icing on the cake, but a cake without icing is not a cake, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise).

     And finally, because I felt weirdly obligated to include a picture of the dress on my actual person but have been loafing around in my biggest glasses and not wearing any eye makeup in preparation for my LASIK procedure and thus did not want to include a picture of my makeup-less face for permanent internet documentation at this juncture in my life, here is a suspiciously cropped picture of me in the dress. 

     Now with bonus 50% more weird pee-dance-stance that makes it look like I might only have one weirdly angled leg! I am so good at blogging (no). 

     So there you go, it's all over! On to the next project!

Skeleton dress: Halfway there!

Here's where we're at: 

     The bulk of the work is, I would say, done. But it's not actually as done as it looks at fist glance, either (I know, I know, you can see those sleeves not being attached and I'm not fooling anyone. I'm a fraud!). Other than that, here's what's left:

1. Add binding along the neckline to finish the edge. This is the main holdup, as I do not yet have any binding. I was at Walmart yesterday and it just never even occurred to me to look for it. I was too distracted thinking about all the groceries I needed! Mmm, groceries.
   
   
2. Finish the sleeves with binding. I've pinned the right sleeve up to 3/4 length in that picture because I'm leaning heavily toward giving them the chop. I'll decide for sure once the sleeves are actually attached and I can try it on.
   
   
3. Put in a zipper.  I have the zipper and everything, I just really didn't feel like doing it last night. Hooray, honesty!
   
   
4. Hem it! I've pinned it up for this picture, but obviously it's a bit slapdash. It was just so long before that it looked ridiculous (as if this dress is ever going to be anything other than ridiculous. That's how I roll!).

 All of that shouldn't take too long, once I have all the supplies and motivation to finish it. I hope to have it finished and ready to show you by Monday, so be sure to check back!

Skeleton dress: progress!

     I've finally got the pattern in my possession and taken the first steps toward making progress on the skeleton dress (first mentioned here). I ended up going with a different pattern than the one I had picked out initially. The pattern I'm using now is New Look pattern number 6143, which looks like this:

How cute is the polka dot dress, too? I'll probably be making that at some point.

     I'll be making view B, the one the model is wearing, only hopefully less dreadful and bleakly 90's-looking than hers and with a few tweaks that I'll tell you about in a minute. First let me tell you why I switched to this pattern.

    Reason #1: I really prefer to stick with Simplicity patterns whenever I can because I find that they are, generally speaking, easier to follow (New Look is a part of Simplicity, in case you're not following the twisted path of devastation left by my derailed train of thought). In my experience, they make less assumptions than some other pattern brands about your level of experience, and are marginally less likely to include any instructions that are clearly just there to screw with you and make you pull your hair out as you scream "But why? Why would I do that? IT MAKES A-NO SENSE."

     Reason #2: The new pattern is actually closer to what I wanted. The only adjustments I'll have to make (see, I told you I'd tell you about the tweaks) are moving the waistline up a bit, maybe shortening the skirt (the pattern has the length slated to be far more modest than I've ever pretended to be, but we'll see how long it is after I move the waist and go from there) and making the sleeves full-length instead of three quarters length. I may end up making the sleeves 3/4 length at the end anyway, but I haven't decided yet. So for now, I plan to make them long. Easier to shorten them later than lengthen them, ya know.

Like it told me to, just longer.

     Reason #3: Simplicity patterns are cheaper, especially if you catch them on sale. The original McCall's pattern I had picked out was twenty bucks. TWENTY.  FOR AN ENVELOPE FULL OF MARKED UP TISSUE PAPER. It's a pattern, not the Shroud of Turin. And McCall's patterns apparently NEVER go on sale, because I've been sale-stalking them at every craft store for almost month with no luck. I can't, I just can't with that noise.

     So! Now I have all the pieces cut out and ready to put together! And since my mum has sweetly offered to do the pleats for me because she knows how I hate them and usually end up screwing them up in some so-stupid-it-would-be-funny-if-it-didn't-mean-I-have-to-redo-it way (ever sew your pleats wrong-side out? I HAVE) and then quitting out of frustration for a period of weeks, it should move along pretty swimmingly from here. I'll keep you posted! (Ahaha see, it's a pun because I'm literally posting about it eeheehee. I'm so sorry, I'll iron my fingers like a bad house elf tomorrow for making such a bad pun.)