Black and White Swirls or UFO #1

UFO #1

The first item coming off of my December list is this UFO.  It has been sitting on my sewing table for about a year and a half.  It will be off of the table by the end of 2010.

A year and a half on from the point of just giving up because the bodice was inches bigger than the skirt which made putting them together seem impossible, I have learned many skills which would have prevented this from occurring.

In fact, many problems I encountered with this pattern I would not now encounter.

There are a number of reasons this dress became an UFO;

1. I didn’t like the fabric.  This is now a no-no for me.  If I don’t like the fabric, no matter what, I do not buy the fabric.  The irony is not just that I don’t like the fabric but I spent more money for it than I normally did.  Also, it is a cotton stretch….ugh. 
2. I did not know about FBAs at this time so I cut the bodice to fit what I thought was the correct bust size.  Wrong!  I had so many fitting issues because the bodice gaped at the arms.  Much fiddling occurred to try and fix that.  A simple FBA would have resolved that issue!
3. I had never eased in anything.  You will note there are no sleeves in this dress because at this point in time sleeves scared me.  It wasn’t until I picked this back up today when the lightbulb went off and I figured I could just ease the bodice into the skirt.  Duh….how simple.  Never occurred to me when I was first making the dress.
4. I didn’t know about different types of interfacing and the one I have is too heavy/thick.  This problem still exists but I if I made this up now, it wouldn’t.
5. The ribbons on the pleats just would not press correctly.  I now know what to do to fix this and may work on this before I go to sleep tonight.
6. Zippers scared me.  Not any more.
7. I was making this to go to a party.  What was I thinking???   I didn’t love this outfit so why would I hurry to complete it to wear to a party?  Once the party got close and I had issues, this was tossed aside with pleasure.
8. Hubris: I seriously thought I would be able to whip this together in a few days….right!  Now that would be a possibility but then….no way.

Current Status:  Bodice and skirt have been sewn together!  It did take a while to ease the bodice into the skirt but it was doable.