It's Beginning to Look Like a Dress! BurdaMag 10-2009-119

My sewing today was constant, but I still didn't get quite as far as I would have liked. BUT! I have something that actually resembles a dress!

Let's see if I can remember all that I accomplished today.

1. Sewed the back bodices to the back skirts.
2. Sewed the front to the back at the shoulders only.
3. Cut out lining.
4. Attached pockets to side seams using this tutorial.
5. Trimmed the neckline of the lining bodice to match the new curve I made.
6. Sewed the skirt front lining together.
7. Sewed the bodice linings to the skirt linings
8. Sewed the front and back linings together at the shoulders only.
9. Pressed the pleated front of my dress very well.
10. Topstitched the pleats on the bodice and below the empire seam enough to make the dress clearly not maternity wear.
11. Removed all basting threads.
12. Followed the tutorial in this pattern review to attach the lining to the fashion fabric.

Here are the topstitched pleats (step 10). You can also see that I didn't quite get all of my stripes to match up. In some cases it was impossible, but in others I went for close enough. The plaid is subtle and my current sewing area is dim. This is also my first time working with plaid.

Here I am turning the dress right side out by pulling it through the shoulder "tunnels" (step 12). If you look closely at the second photo, you can see how closely I was able to understitch the lining.

Here I am with the dress draped over my shoulders. It's looking a little Pilgrimy now, but that's because the side seams and center back seam aren't sewn. Nice clean finished neckline, eh? And no hand stitching!

Phew!
I still need to sew the side seams of the lining and the dress. I might get that done tonight. The center back zipper and seam need to be finished as well as the hem on both the lining and the pleated dress. That might take another week.

All in all a productive day!

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Last week my kids had their Valentine's Day parties at their schools. I am loathe to purchase valentines, because they almost all have licensed characters on them. Either that or they cost too much. (And I'm just not a card person, anyway.)

So this year, we decided to make cookies. I made my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe and spread it out into a jelly roll pan. I baked it about the same amount of time I would bake a pan of dropped cookies and let it cool several hours. I then cut out cookie hearts using a cookie cutter and put one cookie in a little cellophane bag for each recipient. My kids labeled them and we happily ate up the scraps.