On Doubting Myself

On a whim, I'm making a 1930s dress out of a polyester fashion chiffon that I picked up on my last trip to the Garment District - Oh crap, I haven't posted since May... Uh, yes! I was at Costume College!  I barely dressed up at all!  But I was there!

Anyway, I got a bunch of printed polyester fashion chiffons that I LOVE from the by-the-pound Michael Levine store. And work is having a sort of electro-swing themed summer garden party (a la Gatsby) so I decided fashion print + 1930s pattern = winning, right?

Well, none of my existing paper patterns (that I could find) actually were frilly enough for the purpose. I actually spent a few hours pawing through my research library and had an option picked out from one of them, when I realized that I'd actually picked up an amazing surplice-back 1930s dress at the local thrift store. 

I took a pattern off that, then enlarged it to my size. Then I spent a bunch of time freaking out about how I was totally doing this by feel, and went back and put the new-drafted pattern against an existing one that I knew fit. I altered it a bunch.  And then, still last night - this was all on Monday, you see! - I threw everything off my worktable and cut it out. 

Today when I got home from work I dicked around on the internet for a few hours, and at 9 really sat down to sew.  I ran gathering stitches in the underbust, set up my serger, and serged the skirt pieces together, switched it into a rolled-hem and hemmed a bunch of parts, then went to my sewing machine and basted the bodice parts together.

Yeah, all those alterations that I made based on that existing pattern that I knew fit me?  I'm taking them out. :P   Whoops.  Should've trusted myself!

So, on the "left to do" list is serge the side seams, re-roll-hem the neckline (too high!), serge the shoulder seams, gather the shoulder seams, and then gather the underbust and finally set the skirt into the bodice.  Then set the sleeves, and roll hem the hem of the skirt.

The one mystery remains - will this be a slip-on frock? Or am I going to have to cut bias and slit it and put in a side opening?  The original has no visible fasteners except at the wrists (and the snaps in the bra-strap keepers at the shoulder seams).  This is gonna be interesting!