Finished Dress

In a previous post I mentioned that I decided to do this dress as my first sewing project on my new sewing machine. Well, I finished it last week! Here it is:

While working on it I began thinking that perhaps the yellow pattern I got wasn’t the best choice – it looked so much better in the store than it did once I started sewing. But its still cute (reminds me of doll dresses) and looks nice over white leggings. I think I want to make a second one but with a brighter color for spring. I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it though (I get bored of patterns after doing it the first time).

The dress took me much longer than I expected! Maybe it’s because I’m not used to using a sewing machine. I also ended up taking it apart and resewing after trying it on the first time I got the zipper in. I realized it was just a tad tight and I should have perhaps used 17 inches as my shoulder measurement instead of 16. It wasn’t tight enough that I couldn’t wear it but I knew that if it wasn’t comfortable then I would never wear it and it’d just become a waste of cloth. So I took apart the darn thing to let it out an inch and now it fits great. Taking it apart also gave me the chance to serge the seams between the top and the skirt (which I had forgotten to do before putting on the zipper), so I guess it all worked out.

By the way – I love having a serger! I never knew such a thing existed until recently. It made my dress feel so nice and complete once I was done. I was so proud of the neatly serged edges on the inside of my dress that I took a picture of it lol.

On another note, I’ve decided my next sewing project will be a quilt! I’ve seen so many on Pintrest that I want to try! At first I was just going to do boring squares but then saw this quilt along and loooved the kaleidoscope look. It’s not quite so boring as just squares and I got quite a few ideas going through the Flickr group associated with the quilt along. I’m just not sure if I want to use fabric I already have or go and buy fat quarters from Jo Anns or Walmart (which has a smaller selection but is 50% cheaper).

I figure I will start soon though. I have a friend coming up to stay for the weekend in March so it’d be nice if I could let him use a real blanket instead of the Snuggy I usually give him lol! I think the only problem is how I will wash it at the end. I have one of those half sized stacked washer/dryer combo things and I highly doubt the quilt will fit in the washer once it’s done. I’ll have to find a laundrymat somewhere outside my area since there are only apartment complexes around here and they all have onsite or in-apartment machines.