The dress that almost made it to Baltimore

Well, we completed our trip to Baltimore. I got a chance to go to G-Street; all I can say is I think they need to open a store in Denver! I got plenty of bounty from there, which I'll talk about later.

Prior to leaving though I was working on a dress that I was hoping to take with me but didn't get done in time, so I finished it up when I got back. (I only had the facings on the neckline and arms to complete).

There are quite a few things I learned but the most important is to ALWAYS DO A MUSLIN, no matter how simple the dress may seem. Just luckily I had enough fabric to make the dress twice!

I made the dress view starting with a size 14. The changes that I did to the pattern were:

1. Took in at the waistline
2. Added an additional 2 inches at the hip line.
3. Changed the hemline so that it was straight rather than asymmetrical
4. Used a serged rolled edge hem on the ruffle on the dress hemline
5. Removed the zipper all together and just had a slit opening, since the dress ties at the neckline. (The dress had a tie opening for the first 8 inches then a zipper which extended to the hip)

I used a fabric from my stash that was a Georgette, and a solid red Georgette for the lining. This was probably the most difficult and time consuming portion of making the dress. Since it was sliding I ended up cutting it on top of a layer tissue paper. (Another reason why I didn't want to deal with a zipper in this dress).
The pattern was only 5 pieces: front, back, bias trim for neck & armhole, ties for dress back, and ruffle on hem. At first I figured that this shouldn't be that big a deal as far as the fit so why do a muslin (famous last words as always!). Well I forgot that I am a woman with some stuff in my trunk so the first version was too snug through the hip line. Thank GOD I had bought 6 yards of this fabric when I originally purchased it. So now I got to do it over, but this time I did up a quick muslin.
Dress on my old dress form (time for an updated form, but that's a different posting at a later time):
The completed dress on me (Sorry, my official photographer is off to college, and my replacement photographer is watching a football game - SMILE - so in the meantime I'm doing my photos.)
So here is the fabric that I will make the 2nd go around of the dress in: