Centaurée Dress

 I bought a length of a lovely sunshine colored, ombré striped seersucker last summer, planning on making myself a sundress with it. I finally used it last week.

I thought the Centaurée Dress by Deer and Doe would work perfectly (spoiler alert! I was right!). I really love the details - the double straps made from the bias tape along the neckline, the triangle point bodice. I also knew it would be less than straightforward to do a bust adjustment - which is probably why I waited on it.

There is a sew-along which gives you really, really good direction on how to assemble the dress. The two that I found the most helpful were the advice in the muslin, and the SBA. 

The muslin pointed out that if you're doing a bodice mockup you really should baste on the zipper so you can get accurate sizing. Normally I make a line and struggle ridiculously to pin my muslins/mockups to myself. Adding the zipper is both genius and a no brainer. Also more difficult than I thought as I did only the bodice and the zipper is much longer than the fabric - I somehow twisted it. Multiple times.

When I make a mockup of a bodice, I follow the initial pattern (for me it's almost always graded between two sizes in addition), to see how much I need to adjust for the SBA - that amount really does change pattern to pattern. The second mockup I use to test the fit after I've done my adjustments -  and normally that's the end of my adventures with mockups.

Not this pattern. It took me three tries to get the center of my bust to not have weird lines and excess fabric. I think I could have sewn up this dress in a day if I didn't realistically wind up making 5 bodices - and had to pause to adjust the pattern 3 times.

Once I figured out the SBA, it was smooth sailing at that point. 

The one modification I made to the dress was to add pockets. I shortened the zipper to accommodate the placement of said pockets - but I also know that Deer and Doe tends to specify much longer zippers than I need. I used the myosotis pocket pattern again - I seem to really love it, don't I?

(Side note I love my topstitch foot. It helps me hem so nicely.)

And I finished it just in time to pack it for the beach!