Crazy Love Rebecca Shift

Another dress for me! This is the Rebecca Shift Dress pattern by SisBoom, same pattern line as my Jenny maxi dress. I'm in love.

The fabric is Jo Ann in brown from the gorgeous Crazy Love line by Jennifer Paganelli, who together with Carla Hegeman Crim (the Scientific Seamstress) designed the SisBoom fabrics and patterns. 

I started with a muslin out of "ugly" fabric to get the size right and found out quickly that I needed to go down a size from what my measurements said I should be. The bodice is Medium 8 and the waistband and skirt are Medium 10. I used the "frankenpatterning" ideas included in the pattern to transition between the sizes. I nipped in the princess seams under the bust about 1/4" each, took the back darts in at the middle about 1/4" each, and took out an extra 1/4" on each side down the centre back, tapering out by the end of the zipper.

I chose to understitch the neck facing and armhole bias bands and then hand-tack them down inside for a neater finish, instead of the topstitching the pattern suggests. I also hand-stitched the facing over the top of the zipper.

Super happy with how the neckline notch just happened to end up inside a motif!

The pattern includes a unique way to get a zipper in perfectly - a gluestick! I used this method first on my Jenny dress and loved it. It was especially useful for this dress, with the symmetrical pattern! I switched to pink thread at the waistband when stitching in the zipper.

Hand hemmed to continue the invisible finishing. I think the last item I hand-hemmed was the little satin brocade dress I made for Abigail for my sister's wedding two years ago...

Best of all - when I walked upstairs wearing the finished dress, my husband was very impressed - he loves bold colours so I guess this was a good choice, even though very out there for me.

Linking up to SewJo Saturday!