Life's little detours...

I was about half done with my Advance muslin last weekend, and then I realized I didn't own an orange invisible zipper. I do a TERRIBLE job with lapped zippers, and my local Fabricland didn't have an orange zipper, even though I was willing to pay their RIP-OFF price of $3.50 for it.

And so this project was on hold until zipper was purchased. (Which I did, yesterday.)

In the meanwhile, I tackled one of my MUST-DO projects. The daughter of my oldest friend Anu turns one on Sunday, and I decided my gift was going to be a party dress. (Note to self - purchased gifts are so much easier.)



Fabric - Less than a half meter of a deep blue satin, found in the remnant bin in Fabricland. I also used a half meter of blue lining. Total cost of fabric? About $5. (Remnant bins rock.)

Notions - One invisible zipper and a purchased rose. Less than $4 in notions, bringing the grand total up to under $10. (The ten hours of labor on this dress - ah, priceless. Part of gift.)

Close-up of flower & trim:


The foundation of this dress is BWOF 11-2007-136. I omitted the collar and the sleeves, and made this dress up in a synthetic satin (which frayed like the devil!). Its fully lined, the sash is two layers of ribbon, a more translucent white/silver set over a plain white satin ribbon. I added a purchased ribbon rose - and attached it with a pin, so the dress would be washable. God, this dress took HOURS! (I'm not exactly sure why, either.) I changed up this dress so much I'm not going to bother with a review, besides, I didn't really even read the instructions, I just sort of muddled through.

Along the way, I got to use my ruffler foot, my edge-stitch foot and my zipper foot, of course. All fun.

Nice things about this dress - the only exposed seams are the center back, below the zipper. Its fully lined, and really, the color of this fabric just doesn't show well in the pictures. This is really gorgeous fabric.

Not so-nice things - My zipper is a tiny bit wonky - see below picture. Honestly, though, this is just a nitpick. I'm happy with this dress, I think it makes a nice present.



And now, back to the orange dress.