Finally ... final 60s shirtdress

Well, it took a few weeks, but I finally got photos of my final 1960s shirt dress from mail order pattern 9123.  This pattern worked out well for me ... I feel as if I made very few alterations, but the truth is, I made them before I did any sewing by comparing the bodice pieces to ones of a dress I had previously altered and making changes as needed.   Kind of like using a sloper, but I am too impatient to actually make one of those!  Here is the link to the first two dresses I made from this pattern.  I guess there won't be any photos of me wearing those, but I made no alterations between making this version and its predecessor, and the first is only slightly different, with less cap-shaped sleeves and a little more looseness in the bodice.   I'm thinking of this final dress as the "atomic 60s" version, because of the fabric I used.  The print doesn't look exactly like atoms, but it reminds me of the atomic depictions that wer popular back in the day, and something about it says "Science!" to me.   I love this fabric, and had a piece of it in the pink color way that was even prettier. I used it to make a skirt, that came out too big.  I could have altered it, but decided to give it away instead.  Anyhow, the fabric is just quilting cotton from JoAnns.   I wish I could buy another length of the pink, but it's long gone now.

Here it is, from the front, back, and side.  I didn't realize until I saw the photos that the back of the neck sticks out a bit, even after adding back neck darts.  But it's not too bad.  The only execution problem I had was clipping a little too close to the collar corner on one side and having some threads come through when I flipped it.  I wanted super-duper pointy points on my collar!  I fixed the problem with a little Fray Check.  The lining of this one is aqua cotton/poly batiste, similar to the color of the big  dots in the pattern, and the buttons.  

Today is also my birthday.  I'm 38, and I think I'm reaching the age were birthdays are both good and bad!   One part of me is all like "yay, presents!" and the other is going "how the $&%@! did this happen?"  But I expect I'll have a nice day, regardless.  My husband gave me my main present before my trip last week -- an iPhone 4, which was great for taking photos, playing games that ran a little too slow on my old iPhone 3G, and watching episodes of "What Not To Wear" in my hotel room.  

My birthday also marks the two year anniversary of my really getting started sewing, as my sewing machine was my big birthday present of 2008.  Having a decent sewing machine (mine is a Janome MemoryCraft 4900) made such a difference for me, as my previous forays into sewing involved plenty of time battling my crappy old machine, which couldn't maintain thread tension and was prone to thread snarls and half a dozen other nasty habits.  I think now my basic sewing skills are pretty solid, and I hope to take on some new challenges in the coming year, both in terms of learning new techniques and starting to do a little design innovation.  I have some fashion design textbooks, purchased from University of Texas' campus bookstore at the beginning of the year, but haven't made time to actually read them yet.  But I think they'll be a useful resource for breaking new sewing ground.