As you have sewn, so shall you rip.

Day 4

I start the day looking forward to getting this dress done. I don’t know what I am going to do tomorrow, but I can’t imagine it will take me more than today to sew the three pieces together, add a zipper and put in a hem. I resolve to think about that later and get started.

Sewing the pieces together goes pretty well. I sit back and admire the work so far and I have to say it looks pretty dang good. I am just going to slip it on to double check everything and then throw in a zipper. Of course, that is when I when I hit another speed bump in this process.

This time I have added too much length to the bodice. Because of the extra length the bottom of the midriff doesn’t sit at my stomach, but down around my hips. If I put a zipper in this, it would not close. I am disappointed and unsure what to do next.

If I can get the length on the bodice just right, I could sew the midriff into the right place. But I have already cut it too short and too long, I am unsure of my ability to get it to the right place, even with some awesome advice from a friend. Plus, I really don’t want to buy any more fabric at this point and I don’t know if I could get the line even and matching the midriff piece if I just cut it while the bodice is together. I could just try to sew the skirt to the bodice and leave out the midriff, but that would give the dress a weird empire waist that I don’t think would be attractive on me, and could make me appear pregnant. My last option is to scrap the idea of a dress and just sew up the skirt. This seems the most realistic option, but requires figuring out a way to make a waistband without a pattern or instructions. Whatever I am going to do, because of the way I have constructed the lining, I have to rip out every stitch that I have sewn today to do it.

I get started with my tiny seam ripper, undoing all of my work. Breaking stitches is vaguely Zen-like work and it is alternately calming and deeply frustrating to break down my work and allow me to reach the place where I can start over, yet again.