Holy Shift!

After 9 months of being engaged I've decided that the hardest thing during the engagement period is not what you'd expect. That rules out the usual suspects, like guest list revisions, selecting and sticking with some sort of color scheme, playing the band v. dj game, and the inevitable family feuds. No, the worst is growing out your hair so that you can do something fancy with it. For me this is particularly painful, as my hair is not meant to be worn long. Need proof? Check out the profile picture to your right. There my coif is 4 inches shorter and I dare say far better looking. So it's with that head's up (ha) that I give you this picture and ask you to ignore the 'do and focus on the dress. (It's not helping matters that this came from a cell phone but whatevs).

I was in need a dress for bridal shower #1 and had this great moderate stretch cotton voile in the fabric stash. Turns out I had just enough to make this pattern in view B and it will now be a staple in the pattern files. I adore it. No joke, this is the first shift dress I've ever made with any success and I'll give half the credit to the pattern and half to the material.

For once I found a shift that fits everywhere; no pulling at the hips in order to fit the waist and no bulge at the waist to fit the hips. Amazing. The stretch in the fabric certainly helped. And just as impressive is the quickness of construction for this one. Cutting and sewing time totaled 4 hours, if that. My only troubles came from a finicky serger, which was used just on the back center seams because of its unpredictable nature. This dress is unlined so I ended up doing french seams on the sides and some bias tape around the back slit.

So there it is. The only thing I wish I had done differently is center the white lines of the fabric more accurately. If you look closely, I centered the front directly on one of the wavy lines but should have centered it in between them. Oh well. And pardon the wrinkles, as I pulled it out of the laundry for the photo shoot. Clearly I'm falling behind in housekeeping chores, among other things!