On a Watermelon Dress

I completed this dress somewhere between May and July, but was so put out with all the various issues I had making that I didn't wear it until the beginning of October when we had a brief heatwave and now it's November, so I figure it's about time to get this posted.

I've had the 1953 Advance 6320 pattern for a while (since January 2019 according to this post) and while I want to make it using the flamingo fabric in the aforementioned post, since it involves cutting the fabric crosswise rather than lengthwise (as the pattern calls for) to have the flamingos go the right direction it keeps getting put off for when I actually feel like doing math and figuring out exactly where the piecing together seams should go so they aren't too obvious. 

Having time on my hands in April, I decided it'd be a great time to test out the pattern as a lengthy shirt/short dress, which would eliminate the need for the yards and yards of fabric and allow me to use the 2 yards of cute, cheerful watermelon fabric I had bought on a whim. 

The pattern has a very full skirt. For the yardage I had after the bodice pieces were cut, I had the options of cutting the remaining fabric in half and piecing it together to get more pleats or to just work with what I had and have a longer dress with fewer pleats. I went with the later and learned that I really, really, really don't enjoy trying to figure out how to reconfigure inverted box pleats to fit a bodice. It involved much more math than I actually wanted to put into what I thought would be a good way to get my mind off what was going on. However, after what amounted to a several day struggle of pinning, unpinning and redoing measurements, I got them in the right places (and wrote down the measurements for future reference) and sewn.  

Thinking it'd be a breeze from there, I then managed to goof up the sewing on of the waist inset and ended up doing a lot more hand sewing than the pattern called for, but persevered and got it sewn on too. 

Next came the zipper...all 18 inches of it. It had to be ripped out twice and I decided on the third try that while it wasn't perfect, and does in several places catch the fabric when being pulled up and down, it would have to do with the reasoning point being I only have to use the zipper when I'm dressing and undressing. At that point, I decided I really wanted to avoid hemming anything, so I went with bias tape to make it easier on myself. I managed to cut it an inch too short somehow, so I ended up having to add a little extra, but thankfully it all worked out. 

 

 

And with that I folded it up and stuck it in the middle of one of my fabric piles and pretended it did exist until October when I stopped being irritated with and decided it actually didn't turn out too badly. 

 

♥🍉♥