I finished my first dress this morning. It was essentially done a few days ago, but I dragged my feet on finishing the sleeve hems. Honestly, I think I was relieved to be finished and couldn't take any more!
This dress is a modified Burda Gathered Dress 06/2012 #126. I made a muslin for it - no significant findings. I made a note to bias bind the gathers on the final version, but I didn't think it was worth doing on my muslin. Haha. Hahahahahahaha. Doing it ended up being a total pain in my side. I unpicked it twice before settling for a shoddy product. I should have stopped there, but I stubbornly pushed forward... and butchered the front. I unpicked that three times before giving up. I don't know if it was the heat (first day of a week-long heat wave) or what, but maaannn that was a terrible sewing day.
The next day, with fresh eyes, I decided that I'd have to make peace with the front (the poor chambray was in no shape to be unpicked yet again), but that I had to fix the gathering. There was no way in hell I'd want to wear this dress if it continued down this road to the scrap heap. I ended up altering my pieces (both front and back have gathers) to have a straight seam. This fixed my messy binding problem and actually looks more interesting, I think. After that, it was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. (Too dramatic for describing sewing? Haha.) I added side seam pockets and French seamed everything. Rather than rolling the bottom hem, I bias faced it. One of my sleeves isn't eased that well, but I can live with it.
I'm in love with this dress now. I wear it proudly knowing what a total shit heap waste of fabric it could have easily become :)
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