Completed: Advance 8295

Hey-o, remember when I got all that awesome swap haul a couple of weeks ago?

And this pattern was part of the prize?

Well, look Ma – it’s a real dress now!

This was a pretty easy/fast make – although I caught myself trying to cut corners to get it put together even faster. WTF! I actually considered omitting the buttons & installing an invisible zipper – WTF! The buttons are the cutest part! Thank god I put the pattern aside for an evening & got my senses back.

But in all honestly – arranging those gathers at the yoke & sewing everything down was a giant pain in the ass. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s passable and that’ll be ok with me!

The only change I made to the pattern was a drastic shortening from tea-length and I took about 2″ off the side as the bodice was a bit loose – I just folded the placket over one more time & that worked perfectly! Oh, and the bodice is underlined with batiste – the fabric is a bit sheer. Hope you can’t see my undies lol.

I sewed the whole thing up without any clue what kind of buttons would make the final cut – I didn’t have anything decent on hand, and I needed at least 9 for this dress! And buttons are expensive, ugh! Thankfully, I found a little card of these yellow guys at the flea market – $1 for 9 🙂 Not too shabby! I wanted blue buttons to tie in the blue yoke, but yellow is good enough 🙂

Oh, the blue yoke, btw – I don’t look too fine in this shade of yellow (or ANY shade of yellow for that matter!) so the blue yoke was necessary to keep my face from getting too sallow-looking. There is blue in the floral print, but it’s darker (the bright was all I could find). I think it works, Landon thinks it’s too randumb. Thoughts?

Do you see my tiny slip-stitches on the inside? NEITHER DO I. Seriously – the best thing I learned from that Bombshell class was slip stitch. I use it on everything!

Here are those yellow buttons – I took a tip from Sunni and stitched all the button holes with bright blue thread, to tie in the blue yoke. Unfortunately, you don’t see it too well when it’s buttoned up. Ha, oh well!

I also made a matching belt – it’s a tiny bit small. I suck at making belts, boo.

As a side note, it might be a little quiet ’round these parts for the next couple of weeks – Landon & I just got approved for a new house (it’s rental, we’re not buying!) so we’ve got a month to move. Which means boring stuff like packing & lifting, but also fun stuff like paint colors & new decor! I’m super pumped, albeit a little stressed (and poor!). Oh, and don’t worry – I still have a sewing room. A bigger, better sewing room – with hardwood floors. Yay!

Tags: advance, completed, dress