First day of school, new wool dress (Vogue 8902)

I know, I know...I just had my first day of school.  But that was my own teaching quarter.  As it turns out, I'm also taking a class, and my first day of Patternmaking at a local community college began this past Tuesday!  Of course I had to make something to wear!

(Awkward arm angle to show the side panels :)

Twice a week, I teach my own lab and then drive to another school for Patternmaking class, so my new outfit still had to be professional.  For my sewing time, a single-garment outfit (aka, dress) is the way to go and I chose Vogue 8902 for its interesting design details.  This pattern has multiple bodices for various cup sizes, so I went with cup size A and planned to cut a straight size 10.  I completely spaced and cut the pattern size 8.  Yikes!  In the end, it was just fine, and I even took the sides in a bit.

The design of the dress is interesting--several panels make up the front and back bodice, and they are cut on different grainlines.  The pattern envelope even shows variations with striped fabric.  The result is a nicely fitted dress with some stretchiness, since the bodices and side pieces are on the bias.  Unfortunately, the result is also that the invisible zipper bows out a bit (at least for me, and I redid the zipper 3 times!).  Next time, I might underline the back bodice, with the underlining cut on the straight-grain, to stabilize the zipper a bit.

All the seams are topstitched as they are sewn, so that made fitting a bit more challenging.  Not only did I reapply the zipper multiple times, I also had to recut the back bodice top after I attempted to fit the dress by only taking it in along the center back.  In the end, recutting the back bodice, ripping out lots of stitches and taking it in along the sides worked much better!  

The fabric for the dress is incredible (and from Britex's remnant department!).  It's a very lightweight wool, which is slightly brushed and extremely soft.  It's gorgeous and perfect for this dress style. While the pattern calls for only lining the bodice (what is that about, anyway??) I lined the whole thing with nude-colored Bemberg (also from Britex)

It's not quite warm enough to go with only cap sleeves, so I wore this with a close-fitting 3/4 sleeved magenta cardigan and light pink sparkly flats.  

I finished this in January, so this is garment #2 for that month.  I'm ahead of the game with my "resewlution"!  And for those eagle-eyes out there, I got my hair cut by the time I took the last photo :)