Tiramisu dress - finally wearable

I have been taking part in the 30 minutes a day Tiramisu knit dress sewalong, but when I was almost finished I ran into some huge problems...

A while back I bought some super cute jersey fabric, it's green with darker green polka dots (or swiss dots, I don't know the difference between those...). Almost immediately I knew I wanted to use it for a Tiramisu dress and when the sewalong came along shortly after it was such a great coincidence.

This is how I wore it today to work, with a grey cardigan and my new boots!

I found my size which can be bit tricky and traced the pattern as I usually do. I cut out the fabric and sewed up the dress until I came to the part when you baste the sides together and try the dress on...

The fit was ALL WRONG! The seam that's supposed to go right under the bust was just above my waist and the shape was just not good. The fabric was too lightweight and stretchy, everything showed like pantylines and tummyfat. I kind of froze and didn't know what to do at that point, so I abandonned the dress for a few days. I also wrote a comment in the Flickr group about this frustration and got some awesome help and encouragement. Yay for sewalongs! :)

So two days ago I finally started to rescue the dress. I cut it apart where I had serged the pieces together and unpicked the basting. I just couldn't bear to do something to the neckbinding or the sleeve bindings, too much hassle. I adjusted the size of the bodice from a 35D to a 30D and also the waistbands. Then I cut out all the pattern pieces from a sturdier jersey fabric except for the neck and sleeve bindings .

I attached the underlining bodice to the shell by overlocking or zigzagging. The dress looks AWFUL on the inside but at least now I can wear it! :) I also had to omit the pockets because they did nothing for my already wide hips...

I had already top-stitched the neck binding using a twin needle so I used zigzag to attach the underlining.

Here you can see the zigzag on the inside of the neck binding.

Now the dress looks alright and I even wore it to work today. I haven't finished the hemline and I don't think I will either.

Look, no gaping!

The Tiramisu dress is a really pretty and flattering dress once you've figured out the fit, but for me it did not go as smoothly as I had anticipated. But I do recommend the pattern!

Back soon with the dress that I made while pausing the Tira dress,

Johanna