ALL DONE: Cherry, border-print dress

Well, as of last night my new cotton dress is finished!

Yesterday, I added the fuller skirt (definitely the way to go), put in a lapped zipper, hand sewed on buttons, hemmed the skirt, and made a matching cummerbund.

This morning, I decided to give it a wash (I did chose cotton partly for easy care, after all).  In the wash, the cummerbund lost a bit of gathering stitches (easily mended), and the dress bodice lost some stitches tacking down the facings (another easy fix).

Post-mortem:

• I MUCH prefer using my toile/muslin as my pattern (versus using the tissue paper).  Using the waxy paper, I transferred the pattern information from the tissues to the muslin, which I later used as not only my pattern, but my underlining.
• I'm in love with underlining.  It's given the bodice great body, and since I've used cotton I've not compromised the dress' comfort.  I did not underline the skirt, which is fine, but I think that next time I will.
• Horsehair hem tape is divine, but I think that I'll try to find the better (thicker than a half-inch) tape for a full skirt.
• Fitting by my lonesome is a less-than-ideal, but necessary evil at this point.  While I have a helpful husband and daughter, I am awful at getting the information for fitting from my head to my mouth thus negating their usefulness in such an endeavor.  My dress form is a close, but not an exact match thus leading to a few inconsistencies.
• It's a mixed blessing when a dress started a week ago ends up being a touch too big by the time I'm finished thanks to more weight loss.  Yay for being closer to my pre-pregnancy size, boo for now having a slightly large dress.
• Printed border cotton will lead to some frustration when the weave shifts a touch to reveal whiter areas of the thread.  Alas, it's only a cute cotton frock.