Meh. A facing would have been a better idea.

So the dress for my sister's wedding is done. I've not slept well all week, and the dress is largely a result of insomnia-fueled late night activity.

I love the bamboo rayon stretch micro jersey I chose. It has an incredible drape, and it's luxurious. I don't know how else to put that: it's buttery smooth, fine, and it as mesmerizing recovery. It didn't drag or stretch out or otherwise misbehave, even though I gave it plenty of reasons to do so, what with my basting and hemming and un-hemming-in-favor-of-a-different-hem business going on.

I do not love that pattern. Ok, well, let me revise: I do love the final fit of the dress. It's not particularly full, and the structured hem Steph recommends for the Red Velvet worked very nicely here to give it just enough body. The shape of the neckline is flattering. The cap sleeves are cute. Hemming those little buggers is another story entirely, and I'd like to take you there with me.

I had the foresight to cut a neck facing for this dress. I guessed that without one, the neckline wouldn't be much interested in being hemmed. I didn't have that same foresight when it came to the sleeve. What's hard about hemming a sleeve?

Um, right. This is not your average set-in sleeve with a relatively straight hemline. The sleeve cap itself is cut in two from the front and back pieces. The bottom of the armscye is made up from the two side panels. And there are near right angles where front and side pieces meet. Yuck.

I tried a 1/2" hem, as recommended by the instructions using Steam-a-Seam. It created a mess. Luckily, I was able to peel it off because it didn't want to stick to my luxe knit in the first place. I decided to serge, turn the serged edge to the wrong side, edge stitch, and then anchor it with another row of stitching about 1/8" away. I got it wet and hung it to dry when I finished to hopefully reshape it and eliminate some of the waviness caused by over handling the fabric. This morning I stuffed it into my suitcase, and the next time I see it, it will be to wear it, love it, dance in it, not critique its finishes (certainly I'm not ready for anyone to critique my finishes right now as I accidentally missed my last hair appointment).  

To recap, I love the princess seams, the fit, the shape, the fabric, and even the length, but next time I'm going to have to do something drastic about the construction or general engineering of this garment. My neck facing isn't quite right - it still wants to flop to the outside, even after understitching and topstitching. My first thought is to split the back in two so that I can easily fully line at least the top with something like nylon tricot or at least another knit layer. We'll see. That may be equally weird, but I seem to remember having a RTW sundress at one point that had that kind of thing going on.

Now, off to the wedding!