Almost finished...

The dress is almost done. All I've got left is to sew the seam below the invisible zipper, apply the facings to the neck and armholes, and hem the skirt.The last thing I did today was to put the zipper in, after which I tried this final product on for the first time.

It looks amazing! It fits like a glove and the colour is spectacular - better than I thought it would be! I'd made a few changes to the pattern before sewing the final product so I was nervous about how it would fit, but I'm no longer nervous. It looks soooo good - I can't wait to finish it so that I can show you pictures.

Putting the dress together hasn't been too bad. Because I'm layering the fabric I had to figure out how I wanted to put the two layers together. I decided on something that acts as an internlining (the top and under fabrics are sewn together) in the yoke and gusset and as a lining (the top and under fabrics are sewn separately) below. The only tricky part with that was putting the gusset in under the arm. The gusset itself has the top and under fabrics together, but the side seam in which the gusset is inserted has separate top and under layers. After a bit of fiddling I got it sorted out.

One strange thing happened while I was inserting the invisible zipper: I forgot how to do it. I developed a method for inserting it that perfectly aligns cross-seams. I knew the first step: baste the seam closed. But I didn't remember any steps after that. I tried to do it but I got it wrong, and then I muddled through and managed to insert the zipper... but I still don't know whether I used the method I'd used before.

This was a little scary. True, I haven't inserted an invisible zipper for maybe six months or so, and I've only had this method... for ... some amount of time (I don't remember when I came up with the method, but I know that it was after I left work, so sometime in the last three years). But to have totally lost the memory is a little freaky. My hands didn't even remember how to do it... sometimes, even if I can't think of the steps, my hands "know" what to do. They didn't this time.

Hopefully this is an isolated incident and it doesn't happen again.