Lace slip dress

So as a newly working person, I thought that the opportunities to wear a fancy dress would be slim, but I soon discovered the plethora of holiday parties that would give me an opportunity to wear/make new dresses!  Awhile back I had fallen in love with this lace dress from French Connection, but did not fall in love with the price tag.    I stumbled upon some lace on sale while buying fabric to reupholster a pillow (the scraps of this pillow then turned into this wristlet!) and couldn't help but buy it.  Then, a Thanksgiving sale put the Butterick patterns at 99 cents a piece!  Yay for bargain shopping.  Unfortunately, I only gave myself a week to make it (boo procrastination).  Luckily, I had this little black dress already hanging in my closet.  So I decided I could just make the slip and throw it over the dress!  Also, the bonus of having the two pieces separate means that if I ever want to add a pop of color or change it up, I can put any slip underneath the lace, and boom, entirely different dress.

Yay for multi-functional little black dress!  The completed lace slip is on the right.

So I didn't estimate my size correctly (or maybe the pattern shape was not as hourglass as I wanted), but my first iteration was basically a lace bag.  I then went into hacker-sewing mode, pinning the points around my waist and hips with safety pins, and free sewing it in.  The pattern also came with sleeves, but after trying it on, I decided to forgo the sleeves since the dress was on the longer side.  Also the sleeves were baggy too.  So much for following a pattern.

Then came the zipper.  Holding the zipper along the back of the dress, I cut a line about the length of the zipper.  It ended up being a little long for the dress, but I kind of like the edginess that it adds to the dress.

Ah, now the edging.  The necklines and sleeves of the dress were unfinished, so I cut off the edges of the leftover fabric.  I carefully trimmed along the edges of the lace to expose the nice lace finishing.  This took a long time.  Then, I sewed the opposite side of the edges to the dress.  It needed to be iron-ed down, but me, the iron, and the lace had a bit of a misunderstanding earlier, so I decided just to leave it.  (Note to self: NEVER IRON LACE.  According to my mom, you're supposed to put a cloth in between it.  Duly noted.)  I'll iron it down later once me and the iron are friends again.

This was the finished product!  I ended up belting it to cinch the waistline a little more and add a festive gold pop.  I'll make a real black under-slip for real someday, but for now, nobody can tell (except for anybody reading this :P)