Midnight Pocket Madness & REAL Swing Dress Progress

I have been true to my word and have been working extremely hard on this thing. I have been by myself for four days (my husband is away in Sicily) and two of those days have been spent mostly sewing. There was some work I had to get done and I had to feed myself, but very productive!

I spent most of the first day tweaking the muslin. I know last time I said I was done with it, but there were a few things that really needed to be worked out. I was going to just do them on the final fabric and be done with it, but decided that I should alter the muslin one more time. So when I woke up at 4 am on Wednesday, I started with that.

Then I cut out the fashion fabric and the underlining and hand-basted them together. I tried to use the machine for one of the skirt pieces and it was way to pucker-y (is that a word? it should be), so hand-basting it was. Most of Wednesday and yesterday morning.

Then the real progress started. I finished the bodice and some of the skirt. Then at 11 last night, I decided I wanted pockets. I found a tutorial online that showed me how to make a pattern (thanks to Burda) and proceeded to put pockets in the dress. I have two pockets, but I think the zipper will be in the way of the left one, so I think I have to rip that out. That is what happens when you decide to change thing late at night!

By the way, short-cuts don't work in sewing, at least my short-cuts. As I mentioned above, I machine basted one skirt panel. I figured I could just leave it that way. Well after my pocket adventures, I decided that I needed to rip out the machine stitches and hand-baste it. So lesson learned. No cheating.

Today, I will sew the bodice front and back to corresponding skirt pieces, do my sleeves (which means cut and sew, but I will tell you why in another post), and hopefully hem this thing.

I also want to say thanks for all my comments on yesterday's post. I am feeling much more high spirited, and I am sooooo close to finishing this dress!!