The Asymmetrical Swiss Dot Dress

I finally finished it! Back in January I picked up the fabric and pattern, last month I cut it out. Weeks ago I mostly sewed it together. Then, at last, I hemmed, zippered, and pocketed it last week. (It honestly only took about a day to make this dress, but I never had one entirely empty day to do so, thus it took for-ev-er.)  What am I talking about? This dress, my asymmetrical swiss dot dress.

As you may remember, I picked up the fabric and pattern on a whim. I was only supposed to be buying thread and buttons, but the fabric was too pretty to leave behind, and the pattern was just too perfect for it.

I bought the fabric before finding the pattern. When I pulled the pattern out of the envelope and saw the size of the skirt pattern pieces I got a little worried. Would I have enough fabric? The skirt is a full circle (well oval actually, to achieve the asymmetrical look.), so very full, fun and swingy, but, requiring lots of fabric. Thankfully, three yards of fabric was just enough!

I got the entire dress sewn together, minus the hem and zipper, and then realized I'd forgotten to add pockets! Now, I know me, a dress will get worn very little if it doesn't have pockets. So, adding pockets was a must.

This pretty fabric being rather thin and delicate, I didn't want to add side seam pockets. I was afraid of the stress they would put on the skirt fabric. But patch pockets. . . those wouldn't look quite right. So I came up with a hybrid between the two.

I opened up the side seams a few inches at the top of the skirt and hemmed the edges of the opening. Then, I sewed patch pockets onto the muslin lining at the side seams. I can reach the pockets through the side seam slits!

Pockets done, I was ready to attach the zipper. I decided to try a technique I'd never attempted before, a lapped zipper. It turned out pretty darned well for my first ever attempt, if I do say so myself! Just as nice looking as an invisible zipper, I do believe.

I put on my new dress to wear to church yesterday, and decided it needed a little something else, a belt.  The fabric belt I made to go with this dress was the perfect color, so on it went and off I went to church.

After Church I got to drive my firefighter brother's new car. That was fun!

This car is fast and it has a 6-speed manual transmission. So much more fun than his old car which was an automatic! Maybe I should sell my 5-speed pick-up truck and get a car like this! Or maybe not. . . not getting speeding tickets and being able to haul goats and such, yeah, those are good things. I think I'll keep my truck.

However, driving a fast car in a pretty dress, that's fun!