Sewing FO: Vogue patterns v1313

This dress is from Vogue patterns V1313 and I absolutely love it. My print fabric is a textured cotton/poly knit and the black contrast is a smooth poly/rayon knit with small flocking dots. Both were purchased from Jo-Ann. I omitted a couple of details in the pattern. I didn't bother with the fleece interfacing and the quilting stitches on the shoulder pieces. I also skipped the front pockets because my fabric is a very soft knit and I didn't think I could sew those pockets perfectly so as not to ruin the smooth line of the lower front section.

The pattern says it is a semi-fitted dress, but it is sized larger than I expected. It's a little more difficult to alter because of the lack of side seams. In order to narrow in the sides, I had to rip out the side panels, cut back the front and back sections, and then sew it back together. I couldn't just sew wider seams because that would make the side panels too narrow. It's just as well that I didn't do the pockets because if I had, I would have given up entirely because of the difficulty of alterations. In addition to narrowing the front and back pieces, I cut them in more at the waist line to give a little more shape to the dress. I also added a small vertical dart at the top of each side panel. The alterations took a bit of work but I love the end result. \

The pattern calls for a 16" separating zipper but I used an 18" one. I think 16" is just a bit too short. Mine is a bit long but I only have about an inch of the zipper bottom extending below and that's fine. I thought about using a metal zipper but they just seem way too heavy so I went with plastic.

I really admire bloggers who get fully dressed and styled to show off their outfits. I managed to don black hosiery for this, but that's about all I could muster. My photos never show my feet because I'm probably wearing slippers!