When you say Parfait I think ice cream....

 

  Oh how I've missed you. I'm pretty much in full denial that it's January. Our Christmas tree is still up, my kids are still on their winter break from homeschooling, my husband just went back to work from his vacation, I chopped off about 7 inches of hair AND I'm headed to NYC next week to see The Airborne Toxic Event! Sometimes I think I live a pretty charmed life....until I realize that while I'm living it up my laundry pile is growing rapidly. Sooner or later I'll have to return to the real world. Still, all in all life has been good and carefree. Next week is back to business as usual so I'm soaking it up while I can.

 
   This dress technically should have been featured in my fails of 2012. Only because I purchased it with so much enthusiasm and then just didn't finish it. I sewed the bodice and skirt up quickly but when it came time to sew the straps and button tabs and button holes and facings......BLAH. Like a child, I balled it up and threw it in a ziploc bag before stuffing it into back of my sewing cabinet. There it sat....giving me the evil eye every.single.time I encountered it. I'd be digging for my rotary cutter and there it would be. Judging me. I swear I could hear it's thoughts, "You wasted perfectly good paper printing me up. You're wasting that pretty fabric. You're WASTING all that interfacing....YOU ARE A WASTEFUL FAILURE!!" Finally it became too much. I had to make it stop. The guilt! It was haunting me. Ok...maybe not haunting me but you know what I mean. I just had to get it finished.

 

  So, I buckled down and did the annoying stuff. I still felt pretty "meh" about it until I tried it on. My husband called me right as I stepped into so I walked out of my room, pinning it up to check for fit, and asked him what he needed. He didn't say anything and when I looked up he was just looking at me. But not just looking at me....looking at me. I almost scolded him that there were children in the room, but instead I cocked my hip and said, "You like it?"  "YES." he replied, with much enthusiasm. With that I giggled like a 16 year old and ran off to finish it. Sometimes that's all it takes, right? For someone else to tell you it's awesome, or for your husband to tell you you look awesome. I'll admit that I got a little ridiculous. I kept trying it on and prancing around, "Do you like it? Do you like it? How does it look?" Jeremy was a good husband and kept up the compliments I so desperately needed and I finished it happily.

  After all of that, what do I think? For what it is, I love it. This dress was always meant to be a wearable muslin. I cut out a 6 on top tapering out to an 8 at the waist. As you can tell by some pictures it swings out in front a little, giving me a pregnant look. And you know how I feel about NOT LOOKING PREGNANT. EVER AGAIN. ha. Next time I'll cut a straight sz 6. The bust gapes at the underarms. I'm undecided as to whether I'll take a dart out of the pattern or taper the side seam under the arms. The straps need to be adjusted also.

 

  

 

 I used a quilting cotton I got on sale last year. I wish I had taken a picture of the print, it's this beautiful art deco looking design. If you follow me on Instagram (Everfive), you can see a close up of it from when I very first started it. Of course this isn't the best fabric for tights. They kept sticking to the dress so I tried to wear a slip but my slip was WAY too long so it's peeking out from the bottom in a lot of these pics. Oh well, I'm over it and hopefully you won't be too irritated with me for it.

 

 

 

  I see so much huge potential in this pattern, though! Seriously, it's perfection. The straps and the pockets and the gorgeous gathers at the bust! It's so flattering! I have plans for a winter weight version as well as a pretty floral one for summertime.

  OH, heeeey, I just realized that in the 6 plus months I've had this blog I've had OVER 5000 VIEWS! Whaaaaaat? To me, that's pretty awesome. I think I should give something away to celebrate, yes?
  

A cry for help

 You probably remember last month when I was talking about modeling my Christmas dress after Bernie Dexter's fabulous creations. That got no further than the planning stages before my Husband informed me that  the party wouldn't be until AFTER the New Year.  Well....that left me bitter enough to state I wasn't going to attend this ridiculous "we survived the holidays" party....Until this week when I decided that now that the holiday season is almost over, I'd like more reason to celebrate. SO, I'm left scrambling to put a dress together before next Sunday. I had some black and white polka dot charmeuse (or something like that) in my stash and decided it would make a cute non-xmas party dress. I asked my trusty friends on Instagram which pattern I should choose and it was honestly almost completely 50/50 between Simplicity 4070 and Gertie's Tiki Dress from her book. In the end, I chose Gertie's dress because I've been wanting to create something from her book. Plus, I want to look sexy, ok?

 Anyhoo, I've made a muslin, cutting a 6 on top, tapering to an 8 at the waist. First thing I had to do was straighten the hips. I was not blessed with those gorgeous curvy hips that most women have. Nope. Mine are as straight as they come. Then I had to do a 1" swayback adjustment and I also pinned out about an inch from the lower abdomen. I'm not sure what was causing it, but I did my best to transfer it to the flat pattern. Here are the results, documented via crappy iphone pics.

 

 

 Now, nevermind that this is made from a wrinkly sheet and ignore the room...it's my sister's. Sorry

for the dark pics. I'm not worried about the bodice, it's very forgiving and I have the fitting all figured out. My problem with the skirt is this; I seem to have fixed the pooling fabric ( I still have a few problems to wrinkle out but for the most part, it's fixed)

What I dislike is the way the skirt just "hangs" off of my rear. It seems to me this may have something to do with my swayback but I can not find any information on how to get a closer fit under me bum. I googled it...the results were disturbing.

 

 So, help me out. Is this just to be expected of the pattern (and I'm just expecting too much va-va-voom) or is there something I can do to fix it?