I honestly wondered if I was going to leave this dress in the naughty corner forever. I had been totally stumped by the way the upper bodice and the skirt seemed to be sized for two very different bodies, and I wasn’t confident in my ability to make it work.
However, I spent some time last week resizing my dress form and padding it out to match my current pandemic + months of inactivity dimensions… THAT was a sobering episode, let me tell you. (To further pile on the self-image pityfest, I also went through hundreds of family photos from 2004 (pre-child) to now and got to see my body change in rather dramatic evidence). But I digress… the dress form is once again a reliable tool for fitting, I think.
With that behind me, I took apart the seams joining the midriff to the upper bodice and skirt, and took apart the side seams, and really looked at what needed to be fixed. I checked the skirt fit on me – it just BARELY fits okay, so it’ll be in my best interest to keep my baked goods intake low, but it’ll do. Then I marked all the points on the midriff pieces where seams should join at vertical points on left and right, upper and lower. This gave me clear direction for how to sew it all together.
So now, I have a mostly completed dress. It still needs the zipper to be inserted on the side, and the lining skirt has to be put together and attached. It looks great from the outside, with the zipper opening pinned shut, on the dress form!
Does the pocket piping seem to wander off and get lost? I feel like it does, but I also think that piping down the side seams of the skirt could be a mistake. I may or may not have enough piping left over to do both sides, but I can probably piece together some bits and pieces to make it work. Sewing piping into the side seam where the zipper is also included will be quite the undertaking but hey… why not? It’s not like I’m in any great hurry to have this done!
