Simplicity, my arse!

Six weeks into this semester's dress making classes and I'm still working on the same dress! It is becoming a very frustrating project. It's not my fault, I swear! It's the pattern! I'm using Simplicity my arse pattern #2403. This is a more complicated pattern than the previous ones I'd used. The tunic pattern had 5 pieces. This one has 24 and 94 steps! And the instructions are not written for a beginner. Last week I managed to skip a whole step, which, luckily, was caught in time.

Despite this little set back,  all was going along swimmingly until last night when I tried on the top of the dress (minus the sleeves- I haven't gotten to them yet) and there was no way that the top was going to button up. The other girls told me that it was 'very fitted'- which I took to mean, 'You look like a $5 hooker'.

I'm making a size 12. I'm usually a 10-12 and before I started we did all the necessary measuring and the finished size 12 should have been slightly too big...which to my mind is better than being a little too small. There is no way that the finshed sizes resemble anything close to what the pattern said. So I thought that I'd mistakenly traced off the wrong size. But, no, I went back and measured my pattern pieces against the original and they are definitely size 12.

Nonetheless I am persevering and I carried on and started on the skirt half. The pockets were easy and turned out really well. Fingers crossed that all will be okay in the end. If not, then maybe it will fit my sister or niece.