The hardest part is over

I'm in the midst of a new sewing project - I'm making this dress (the style shown in pink) to wear to a wedding in a couple of weeks. I know that's not leaving much time, but the hardest part is over and now I just have to sew. I made a muslin of the pattern to check for fit and found that I had to add a little here, fold out a 1/4 inch there, drop the bust dart, add some more here...whew! Then I passed the next big hurdle of cutting the fashion fabric. I hate that part. Yes, there is something nice about smoothing out the fabric over my big cutting table and appreciating the loveliness of it, but I tend to fuss and fuss and FUSS over getting the grain lined up and the pattern pieces positioned correctly. Fortunately this fabric, a rayon, could be ripped to establish a grain line. I did a sort of "pre-layout" of the pattern pieces because I feared not having enough fabric. I had 3 yards of 54 inch fabric but the pattern called for 3 1/4 yards of 60 inch width fabric. It turned out that I needn't have been concerned. I had 1/4 yard left over. My worries didn't end though. I scrutinized the fabric to see if there was a direction to it. I've made the mistake of either assuming it didn't or actually cutting the pattern pieces out upside down. Then there's the issue of which side is the right side - on my fabric it's very subtle and I suppose either side could be correct, but mixing the two would be noticeable. After all the fussing and planning, I took a deep breath and cut. I narrowly avoided a major mistake when I realized I'd forgotten to add to the back pattern piece seam allowance. Crisis averted. All the pattern pieces are cut out, notches clipped, and markings transferred. Now the easy part begins. Well, we'll see about that.

Another good thing about making a muslin is that you get to practice the construction. I checked out patternreview.com and found two reviews of this pattern. One reviewer was disappointed that the horizontal gathers at the waistband failed to defy gravity and were rather droopy on her. I'll be sure to keep this in mind and see how those gathers behave for my fabric and make changes if need be. Hopefully the dress will go together without too many late nights and I'll be able to wear it to the wedding. If not, I have a couple other backups. It's definitely a good idea to have a backup plan when sewing to meet a deadline!