I Need A Drink

Or seven.

That can only mean one thing - I started cutting out my Thakoon silk for my next Saltspring dress. Was I smart and got a stable, easy to handle silk?  Oh no. Did I mention that this is crepe de chine?

I absolutely love the fabric and nothing was going to keep me from buying it, but I did not think this thing through! I have no rotary cutter, no pattern weights, and I'm too damn lazy to trace out a full pattern piece to avoid cutting on a fold. It's just me, a relatively sharp pair of scissors and some brand new silk pins.  I was just lucky that the cats stayed away.

That's right, I like to live dangerously (or stupidly, you be the judge).

The slightly sheer nature of the fabric helped me out. I tried to align the pattern motifs to the gridlines on my cutting board. I was also good and only cut through single layers of fabric.  I would cut half of the pattern and then flip it and sometimes the fabric itself over to help align the pattern.  I don't think it turned out half bad.

But seriously, the only thing that kept me from hitting the bottle was the knowledge that there was a 100% certainty that I would mess this up under the influence. Even one sip, and there would be no hope. Sober, I had a 50-50 chance :)

Here's the front:

And the back:

My strategy was to to focus on choosing and centering design motifs and not worry about matching the pattern at the side seams. The pattern is so busy that I don't think it's going to stand out. I've also been looking at dresses online that use this fabric, and side seam pattern matching is not even attempted in a few styles.

Since I'm a sadist, I chose a nice slippery rayon as lining. Funny thing is that I'm really not all that worried about the actual sewing. I trust that my machine can handle it.  Cutting out the pattern pieces has always been my least favorite part, so it's no wonder that agonized over this bit.