I’ve so many ideas working through my mind these days that I feel quite stumped.  Where to begin?  I seem to have no discipline to sit down and work out the ideas so they become 3D wearable garments.  I am so easily distracted by reading blog posts, various household tasks, my children’s shenanigans and the sunshine outside.  It’s hard to sew singlemindedly when your sewing corner is in the basement somewhere and the sun is baking the world outside the windows….  Sigh.

anyways……  My goal this year was to work through my stash (and something about fit), and this batik was a purchase from last summer, I believe, from EmmaOneSock.  I really liked the colours, and thought it would be fun to have something in my closet made from batik.  There was only one yard and a bit, so I knew it would be a short summer sheath dress.

I used the bodice from Vogue 8469, did my usual FBA (actually, this is one of the rare patterns in my life where I actually cut and fit a proper muslin for the bodice and then folded, ironed and returned it to the pattern envelope for future use) and shortened the back bodice by 2 inches, tapering to nothing at the sides.  Yes, I am that ridiculously short-waisted and sway-backed.  I left the waistband the original width, hoping that I could take the length out of the bodice pieces only.  Not quite.  You can see from the side seam wrinkles in the picture below that I should have shortened the entire bodice by the usual 2 inches, but I didn’t this time for some unknown reason (sewing late at night?).

Unfortunately, it was still too long, and because I still don’t have a dress form that mimics my shape well, I asked DH to please help me with the fitting.  Well, he carefully pinned the excess out of the CB seam (I hadn’t put the zip in yet), and critiqued the resulting fit with a very accurate eye, I may say.  He suggested that the waistband was too wide – the proportion was off – so I shortened it by 5/8″ all around and took in the side bodice seams by about 1/2″, tapering to nothing at the waist.  The bottom of the waistband sits at my natural waist in the back only, by the way.  It sits above my natural waist by about 1 inch at the centre front.

I must say he was quite picky with fitting the back, and commented that “there were still wrinkles” after he’d adjusted and pinned everything out so that the front fit properly.  I honestly wasn’t too worried about it and trusted to his judgement.  Actually, truth be known, I wanted this thing done and ready to wear and really didn’t care if the fit wasn’t dead-on-perfect.  I didn’t shorten the hem, although I think it should be shorter, because I’m sure it will shrink over the multiple washings it will endure over the summer.  We’ll see…

As I didn’t have an invisible zipper, I went with a lapped zip insertion, which worked just fine.  I trimmed the seam allowances off the neckline and armscyes because I wanted to bind them in the remnants from the batik romper made earlier this week.  I just really liked the blues in that fabric and wanted to use it as a contrast for the rusty batik.  I honestly thought I’d end up with an incredibly ugly dress, but I’m kinda liking it’s oddness.

I didn’t line the bodice.  I thought, “Why bother when I’m binding the edges, anyways?” although I did line the skirt.  The skirt is the straight skirt pattern from Vogue 2864.  I can’t draft, but I can piece things together from a variety of patterns!  I decided I’d leave the side slits as originally intended, and lined the skirt to the top of them with bemberg.  It’s kind of a ridiculously short lining:  there’s barely enough length to sit on it, but I really psychologically need the extra layer of lining.  It just makes the garment feel finished in my mind, y’know?   The only other finishing touches I added were strap keepers at the shoulder seams and a thread loop for the hook closure at the CB neckline.