Oooo... A Challenge!

So, I have a birthday coming up. May 24th, to be exact. I host a party every year to celebrate, but I hold it on the first Saturday in June since at least half the people I know are out of town Memorial Day weekend (which always follows my birthday). This year I decided to start going with a theme and with the help of my friend, Heather Brooks, I chose to do a retro Tiki Party theme. I saw Vogue's V1176, a Michale Kors dress, and knew it would be PERFECT!

Isn't that bodice detail awesome?! I love it!

The bodice front is really the only somewhat complicated part of this average difficulty pattern. The dress is fully lined and has a self-fabric belt.  I started my muslin today and the bodice is complete. That's steps 1-12 of the instructions, out of 73 steps!

 

I'm making the muslin out of a plain white full-size flat sheet. I haven't pressed the seams yet, so they are a little wrinkly looking.

 

Close-up of that drape detail. It is open behind it to slip the bow into.

 

And I recently took that disaster of a little brown dress and used it to make my too-small dress form fit my measurements. It's stuffed with newspaper right now, as I have no batting on hand. I'll remedy that soon, though. The muslin is lining up, centers, bust points, waistline and sides, perfectly! Woo hoo!

Straps and skirt will be done tomorrow. After that is the lining and bow. My deadline to have a finished dress is June 1. If the rest of the dress goes as smoothly as this bodice muslin did I don't see any problem meeting that deadline.