Felicity Dress, Take 3 In Progress

This is my third time making Jennifer Lauren's Felicity Dress. I absolutely LOVE the second one I made--the first one, not so much!--and of all my handmade stuff, it's probably the piece I wear the most.

I have a couple of fun events to attend this summer, and a new dress for those get togethers sounded like a lovely plan! But rather than go through the arduous task of buying one RTW, I opted to make my own, and friends, it has been the best sort of idea. I was under a bit of a time crunch though, so rather than try (and possibly fail) with a new pattern, I opted to make a third Felicity dress.

It was an easy call, especially since I am still in the process of losing baby weight. Since I can currently fit into my other Felicity dress which was made pre-Vanilla, I knew that a third would still fit me when I've lost the baby weight. Also, the pattern was already cut out and marked, and that right there was a huge time-saver.

I ordered this super yummy lawn from Cotton + Steel--the line is specifically Hatbox--but it was going to be way too shear to wear solo, so I opted to line it with a muslin. I would still consider myself a beginning apparel-sewist, and I'm not too knowledgeable about the different types of lining fabrics. Because of that, the fabric I picked out is probably too structured for this lawn, or so I worried, but after sewing it up, I actually like the body it lends to the lawn. It gives the dress a bit more oomph and polish, and while it was completely accidental, I'm thankful for the accident!

My dress was all sewn up with the exception of the bottom hem when I went to try it on. I found with both of my previous versions of the Felicity dress that I needed to gather the neckline substantially more than is called for to make it lie flat and even on my chest. I accounted for that when I was sewing this version up, but after trying on the dress, I realized I still hadn't gathered enough, and so I need to rip out the binding fabric and gather the neckline again. Hopefully that fix will finish off this dress.

(And can I just say that I'm none too excited about this bit? The awesome lining fabric plus the lawn make gathering a tricky task.)

I did hem the bottom (obviously after this photo was taken) so once the neckline is finished, this dress will be ready to go! I'm really *really* excited to see this one done, and I'm even more excited to wear it this summer.

OH! And on looking up the Felicity Dress page while writing this post, I discovered that Jennifer Lauren has released a free skirt expansion, and I'm SO excited! I've been wanting to make some skirts for awhile now, and I've been eyeing the Cleo Skirt pattern by Made by Rae because it's cute and it has POCKETS. I may still wind up buying the Cleo pattern, but first I'm going to try this, especially since it also has pockets! (I kinda feel all dresses and skirts should have pockets.)