Here’s the party dress I’ve been working on for the past two nights:

It’s Butterick B4389, made out of textured, printed white chiffon and gunmetal blue-grey stretch satin from a Hancock’s clearance rack. Total cost of materials, thread, and pattern = $12.75-$15.00. I only used materials, thread, pattern, and notions from my current stash and bought nothing new for this project.

I cut it out in pattern size 12, but had to take it in by 1.25″ because it was WAY too loose on me now that I am shrinking down to a 34A again. I just need to hem the skirt, slipstitch the bodice lining, and sew in a second hook and eye above the zipper since my 1″ increase in the back-waist length made the 12″ zipper too short.

As a bonus, I discovered that I needed to dial myself a smaller bust and booty on my Singer dressform when I compared its measurements (set around August 2007) to my current ones. Hurray for the shrinking backside!

My full review of B4389 is up at Patternreview.com for the curious.

I still covet this Jalie running skirt pattern! I think that a workout skirt with attached shorts would be so cute, not to mention a hell of a lot cheaper to make myself than the $40-$50 these things are going for online.

Wah! (Counts the weeks until June 6 when she can spend money on clothing, fabric, patterns, and other related stuff again.)