The Math Dress

Even though just earlier today I had said I was going to make the super-easy dress, I decided not to because I was remarkably close to finishing the math dress. As you may recall, I had plans to make this dress way back around my birthday in May BUT Ikea didn't have the fabric; when I went a few weeks ago they had enough for me to make the dress so I bought it BUT it took a while to do it for several reasons. Two months ago I had made this sketch for the dress:

This was before I realized just how big the printed words were:

I then needed to figure out how to the skirt; I decided on a circle skirt (seen here being cut out on my bedroom floor next to Pebbles's cage)

and, as per usual, messed up my waist measurements and made the waist way too big. So then I had to backtrack a little. I made the bodice and then gathered the skirt to match up with the bodice

 the resulting stitches are grotesque:

So then I made a sash to (a) cover the stitches and (b) cinch the dress some more. I decided to go the way of making two tubes, stitching the ends into a point,

...using my pinking shears to cut away the excess (that's not blood on them, they're reflecting my horrible curtains)...

...and then, after turning them inside out, stitching the two together. this meant that all of the seams were INSIDE the sash, which is awesome in terms of fraying.

You might recognize this pink fabric as the very same I used for the Sencha muslin; as a result (because I went through so many of those) I wasn't sure I'd have enough to make binding tape for the bottom hem, so I just zigzagged stitched it (which always makes me think of my sister).

Then I used the same tube-philosophy as I did for the sash to make the binding for the top of the bodice. Then I did it AGAIN for the straps; I'm particularly pleased with the straps.

 I folded them in half and stitched them to the back of the bodice...

...then I made button holes on the front (two for each set of straps) which I threaded the straps through

and then tied into little bows. Adorable!

And here's the final product.

I'm very pleased with it, even though:

• the waist stitching is weird
• the skirt is off-centre
• there's no binding on the bottom
• the bodice is still not fitting perfectly

I think it's wearable and I like it so I guess, in the long run, that's all that matters. Also, it came out remarkably close to my initial sketch. Crazy!