I did it!!

I finally finished my Sew Simple #006 skater dress on Wednesday, just in time for Me-Made-May!

Please excuse the awful photo! I've not been brave enough to post a photo of me online before, but I am proud of this dress.

The dress was still unfinished at this point, but we had a gloriously sunny day on Tuesday so I thought I'd make the most of it - hence the squinting! You can see the hem isn't finished, but you can't see the pins holding the back closed!

This is it all finished - it was only at this point that I noticed the hem isn't straight! However, I have a bit of a tummy bulge so when its on it actually evens out that dip at the front.

The pattern called for sleeves down to the elbows but I prefer sleeveless dresses. Having never made anything before, with sleeves or without, I ended up spending a lot of time reading blogs and trying to work out how to convert it to sleeveless. In the end I used Jennifer Lauren's tutorial on how to make bias binding then followed Indiesew's tutorial post on how to use it.

Making it nearly stumped me! Ended up calling the bf in to help me try to get a 45 degree angle as I was using a bizarrely shaped offcut to try and save fabric. Took me 2 hours but I got there in the end, over a metre of bias binding with slightly wavy edges! I think the wavy edges is why my stitching is showing as either single or double lines on the dress, but tbh I'm just happy that it worked! That is an improvement for another time :D

I also ended up hating the neckline facing for the dress as it's prone to peaking out, especially in the back as it's V shaped. So I stitched along the neckline to help hold it down. I got too excited and did this before inserting the zip however so the zip really isn't very neat at the top as the facing should be lying over it. 

I am super pleased with how the zip turned out though! This was my first attempt at putting it in and it's quite neat. I swear the top matched when I was pinning the zip in, cos I took ages lining it all up before pinning the second side of the zip. However, I did double the fabric then cut the back bodice parts at the same time, so the fabric probably wasn't cut very accurately and that's what I think has caused the misalignment. 

I wore the dress to a course yesterday to test it out and I bloody loved it! The skirt is very full and swishy - and I love a swishy skirt! It was probably a bit much to wear on a work course tbh, but it made such a nice change from wearing uniform! Plus it was 01/05/15 and after keeping an eye out for Me-Made-May for the last 3 years it's so nice to be able to take part for once! 

This is the next fabric I have lined up for a project. I bought 3.5m from Ikea on Monday at £3/m. It's 100% cotton and feels like the same weight as the blue Ditte fabric that I made the blue skater dress from. Having done some reading, it seems that the fabric is considered heavyweight or quilting cotton, so I'll try to pick something appropriate. Craig thinks I should make the skater dress again with a longer, below knee length but I think the full skirt will work against that. 

I recently bought these Simplicity patterns in a Minerva Fabrics sale, and I bought the pear fabric intending to make a pear (sorry!) of PJ bottoms. However Craig has an almost 3 year old niece that I also think would rock a pear dress, so I'm unsure. 

I've just this morning bought 2m of black cotton twill fabric from eBay to make an Arielle skirt. Hoping to crack on with that on my off-duty days next week. It'll be a nice treat to make up for working night shifts this bank holiday weekend!