The Big Damn Movie...errr, Dress

 
After all that wibbling about the issues with my UFO dress, I finally have pictures to show! It took long enough to finish the dress, and about equally long to get pictures, what with a combination of gray skies and husband being gone and Jeremy Lin playing what seems like every night. Even these pictures were sneaked in during yesterday afternoon's game.

Anyway, since it's inaccurate to keep calling it the UFO dress, seeing as how it's finished now, I'm renaming it the Big Damn Movie Dress. If you're at all familiar with the Firefly fandom, you know that the long-awaited Serenity was nicknamed the BDM; I don't think anyone's been waiting for this dress' unveiling except myself (and possibly Shayna, but only because she is so kind), but here's my BDD, since LBD it's not. It's rather too floofy and un-sleek for that. And it certainly felt damned while I was working on it. Even now, though I feel okay about it, it's definitely not one of my proudest creations. But hey, at least it's out of the UFO pile. Thank you, Sew Weekly, for giving me the kick in the butt I needed to finish it off.

You can totally see the wrinkles in this blown-out shot.
I added a big be-flowered grosgrain ribbon belt in an attempt to hide some of the wrinkles.

Without the belt. My petticoat is showing, and the lining is caught on it...

I love the gold zipper on the back.

I'm not going to say too much more about its construction since I already ranted at length about it, but I will add a couple more thoughts. First, my SBA apparently wasn't S enough, as I had to stuff socks in front to fill out the B. Also, on going back and reading the pattern instructions, I found that I was supposed to have interfaced the entire bodice. Well gee, maybe that would have helped with all my lumpiness and wrinkling issues! Fellow sewists, here's a PSA: please learn from me and DON'T ASSUME YOU DON'T NEED TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. You're welcome.

I am pretty pleased with the inside of this dress; everything looks so nice bound up in that pink seam binding. For once, I feel like the insides look nicer than the outsides...maybe I just need to run the lint roller over the bodice and iron my tulle. And only wear this to events with dim lighting.

You can see the edgestitching, the nice seam binding on the zipper tape edges, and all the stuff stuck to the plush.
Gosh, it looks pretty awful in this picture.

Summary:
Pattern: Vogue 1042
Fabric: Some kind of polyester black plush fabric with a very short pile, just enough to make it difficult to iron, but without any of the luxuriousness of plush. Also attracts cat hair like no other. I lined the bodice with my husband's old 100% cotton flannel pajama bottoms, but only because it was my muslin and I hated to see such a nice muslin go to waste. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen something with a bit more body to it, and something not quite so green-plaid for the times you get glimpses of it. That said, the inside of the bodice is like wearing lovely, soft, butter. But breathable butter, since it's cotton.  The skirt is three yards of tulle and some nice polyester lining. I am a walking synthetic cloud of fabric.
Notions: Gold "fashion zipper" from Joann's, seam binding
Techniques used: Edgestitching on the bodice, French seams (my first ever, on the lining of the skirt), and screaming.
Hours: I don't even want to think about it. Upwards of thirty, I'm pretty sure.
Netflix queue: I think I'm going to start adding this category into all my summary posts. This dress, fittingly, was constructed with all of Firefly and Serenity going on in the background.
Will you make this again? HAH. HAHAHA. THAT IS A FUNNY QUESTION.
Total cost: The bodice fabric was purchased four years ago for another project (my first and only Ren Faire bodice), so I think by this point it counts as free. I still have more leftover, because back then I didn't know how to estimate how much fabric a project would need. Bodice lining = definitely free, skirt lining was $4, tulle was $6, huge gold zipper $3, so a total of $13.
Final thoughts: I was going for a Dior New Look-esque look with this dress, and I think I kind of got there. Even if it was way more trouble than it was worth. I do like my final dress, although like everything else I make, every time I wear it (if I ever wear it, poofy monstrosity that it is) I'll be secretly worrying that people are disdaining my shoddy bodice construction.

I need one of those cartoon-y thought bubbles that says "Hmmm...are they looking at all the wrinkles?"

I would like to get some gold dress clips for the corners of the sweetheart neckline, but that's not in the budget right now. Maybe I can hack some out of old clip on earrings and my button stash.

Let's go back to standing in the shadows, shall we?