AMH Museum Tunic

Ever since I saw Anna Maria Horner's Museum Tunic last summer, I've wanted to make one.  A couple months ago, the fabric went on sale at Fabric.com, so I placed my order.  I wanted to make it in dusky purple like the original, but by that time the only color available was sunny yellow - which I also love - so I went with that.

Yesterday I just couldn't stand it any more, so I got out my machine and my fabric and went to town.  And here's my dress:

Hubby said, "Oooh!  It looks like a butterfly!"

I know it doesn't look like much on the hanger!  But I decided at the last minute to have some friends over for dinner, so I didn't want to take time to do a whole "photoshoot" - I'm writing this as my eggplant is roasting!  I'll see if I can get my friend to take some pictures later, since I plan on wearing it this evening!

It took me three hours to make this dress, mostly because Every. Seam. is folded back and topstitched down:

top:  from right side; bottom:  from wrong side

And also because I decided that rather than zigzag on 1/4" elastic like the original, I'd try my hand at shirring the waist:

I had to spend a fair amount of time getting the tension just right so that the upper thread wouldn't break.  It's not the neatest shirring in the world, but I'm pretty happy with it as a first attempt.

I loosely followed this tutorial, which links to another great tutorial explaining how to do shirring.  I didn't underline my dress like she did, because I always wear a slip anyway and I wanted this dress to be really light.  And it made more sense to me to sew up the side seams first and then do the shirring.  I did it all in one go, rather that starting and stopping each row.  And of course, the seam where I started and stopped - which I'd thought was the side seam - turned out to be the center front.

BUT!  I'll be getting a do-over!  Because this morning I got an email from Hawthorne Threads alerting me that the fabric was back in stock, in the color I originally wanted!

Click!  Ordered!