My First Dress

After my first circle skirt, a dress felt like the natural next step. I chose the simplest dress pattern I could find at my local shop. My thinking was that it wouldn't be too difficult: a dress can be seen as a skirt with a bodice attached, and I'd already made a skirt. That turned out to be only half true.

The fabric

I chose a beautiful fabric with a bird print on it. I thought it looked really pretty and unique.

The bodice

The skirt part felt familiar, but the bodice was the most difficult part of the whole dress, along with connecting everything up. I had to make an awful lot of adjustments to the fit, and it took a lot of fussing over to get it right. Getting the seams straight and correct was a struggle too.

The muslin I didn't make

I didn't make a muslin first, a quick test version of the dress in cheap fabric, and I regretted it. It would have saved me a lot of trouble and stress, because the fitting problems could have been worked out on the test version instead of on my real fabric. The Fitting and Alterations page explains how to fit a muslin.

The neckline

The neckline isn't perfect, and when I look at the dress I notice the little things that are slightly off. But I'm reminded that probably nobody else would ever notice them. It's funny how we see our own imperfections that nobody else notices or cares about!

What I learned

• A dress is more than a skirt with a bodice attached. The skirt was the easy part. The bodice is where the real work is.
• Make a muslin for anything fitted. It saves trouble and stress, and keeps your good fabric safe while you sort out the fit.
• Allow plenty of time for fitting and for joining the bodice to the skirt.
• Be kind to yourself about small imperfections. The things that bother you most are usually the things nobody else sees.

After this dress I moved on to my first shirt.