Proud seamstress

The dress is done! No pictures of me in it yet... still a few pounds to lose and an underdress to buy ;) But, in its full glory!

For this dress (from Burda Style 9/2010), I used a lovely teal/turquois blue stretch fabric, which was actually quite hard to work with. Because it stretches, exactly. The back and front were also quite hard to distinguish, which resulted in me putting the entire front together, only to find out that one of the strips was back to front. Big sigh. Had to be taken out again and resewn...

There was actually quite a bit of hand-sewing to do. The piping around the arm holes and inside the sleeves all had to be fastened on by hand, to create invisible seams, and the same was true for the neck and hem line.
It was great fun to do, and I'm bitten by the sewing bug badly. I've already started cutting and basting Mermaid's winter coat, so hopefully I can start sewing that next Monday in class. Looking forward to that!
I've also joined a sewing site, similar to Ravelry, but then specifically for sewing, called My Sewing Circle. The site is still in development, but it looks fun to have a sewing portfolio as well, besides the knitting/crochet/spinning stuff.

It's quite fun to see the effect of light on the lines in the machine-knit fabric. It gives a nice shimmer and because not all the lines run straight down (as a result of how the fabric was cut and reassembled) there is some variation in colour and colour depth. A great project to get my teeth into. I learnt a lot the past few weeks!
Of course, this party dress is just begging for a nice lace shawl... So guess what will fly onto the needles this week...