Nani Iro and the placket of doom

This Nani Iro sateen is amazing

This looks like the kind of dress a somewhat experienced sewer could whip up in an afternoon. And if it weren't for my last-minute plan to include a fancy-pants placket then that would have been the case.

Instead, I unpicked, resewed, unpicked, resewed and unpicked and resewed a million and one times until I got it looking reasonable and not just like some dodgy home made job. Luckily the fabric is such great quality you can't even tell I sewed it way too many times. As a result I have received many compliments on this dress.

Not perfect, but OK I think

Whoohoo!

This is a Frankenpattern if ever there was one. The bodice is from the April Rhodes party dress, the skirt from the Christina Hayes Emery and the placket is from Megan Nielsen's Briar Banksia top. I really should do a pattern drafting course so I could learn how to do these things properly rather than just mixing up a bunch of patterns and hoping for the best.

Still. I think it worked out pretty good in the end.

I also gathered the skirt on my overlocker, which is something I have been meaning to try for a while now. I have a Janome MyLock 644D and whenever I have followed the instructions in the manual gathering has never worked too well. After a bit of Google searching I discovered that the trick is to  to adjust the 2 needles to a tension of 8. I must say, the gathering worked out to be much more even using this method than my usual baste and pull technique and I'll be doing it this way again.

A simple make, but I learned a few new techniques and am glad I pushed myself to try something new. Now I want to make more.