Prom/Christmas dress... finished!

Remember this dress?

Last spring, I got the sewing bug and tried to whip together a bunch of remnants in about three hours for the law school prom. The bodice started off looking like this in March, and then two months later I added some smocking so it looked like this.

Another six months passed, and then this guy invited me to his program's holiday party so... the Almost Prom Dress became a Christmas Dress. I had sewn the skirt on, but it was a disaster (uneven gathering, no plan at all for how to attach a zipper) so I took it off and re-attached it. The skirt was still pretty full at the top, so I decided to do some large-scale smocking at the top of the skirt. Hmm. Kinda lumpy. I was still sewing on it when Zack came to pick me up. Instead of giving me a bunch of (deserved) grief about being late, he helped measure the hem. I cut off the extra fabric on the bottom and we were out the door.

Unfortunately, it was a freezing cold night, so I wasn't in a hurry to take off my coat at the party. Which means that I don't have any pictures of me actually wearing the dress. But a friend did take a nice one of my date.

I'm still mixed about how the waist came out all lumpy. I'm thinking about doing some beading around the contours of the smocking, at least on the waist part, just to weight things down a little bit. So stay tuned for the next variation...