Tackling the Beast

What have I gotten myself into? My middle daughter wants me to sew her a dress and I thought it would be the perfect birthday present for her. We headed to Jo-Ann's so she could pick out a pattern and fabric. My only stipulation was that the pattern was EASY.

She settled on this pattern. A cute, little sleeveless dress with ruffles on the front and a ribbon at the waist. And, most important to me, that little four letter word. EASY. What does easy mean to me?

eas·y  (z)

adj. eas·i·er, eas·i·est

1. Capable of being accomplished or acquired with ease; posing no difficulty.

2. Free from worry, anxiety, trouble, or pain.

3. Causing little hardship or distress. 


We picked out fabric, zipper, thread, ribbon...and headed home. I tucked it all away while I finished up some other sewing projects. Fast forward to yesterday.

I had finished up 2 SUPER EASY projects (those sleep shorts) and was ready to advance to EASY. The day had arrived to begin cutting out the dress. I was already aware that the dress had a zipper. I don't consider that especially EASY but it wasn't scary. However, as I was preparing to lay out the pattern pieces I noticed a word that I had missed previously. LINING. What the hell? Linings aren't EASY. I began to suspect the good folks at McCall's weren't being completely honest about the difficulty of this design. This suspicion was confirmed by the darts and pleats I had to mark onto the fabric pieces. Then, as I'm reading through the assembly instructions I note that the ribbon is attached with top stitching. Using a Saddle Stitch. By hand. WHAT!?!! Hand stitching is not EASY. So far we have....ruffles, pleats, darts, zipper, lining, hand stitching...to top it off the pattern pieces are marked with not one, or even 3, but FIVE sizes, making it a jumbled up mess and really hard to see where to cut or mark. This dress is most definitely NOT EASY. Then I notice a little word, at the bottom front of the pattern. Couture.

Apparently COUTURE EASY is not the same as regular ol' EASY. It's too late to turn back now. I've got the pattern partially cut out. I have to head back to Jo-Ann's, today, to purchase lining fabric. My daughter is depending on me. I need to produce a wearable dress by mid-June. This should be interesting.