Completed: Pauline Alice Gingham Cami Dress

I'm so happy to finally be allowed to reveal my Cami Dress!

Sewing this dress was really enjoyable for a cami-nation (get it?) of reasons. Aside from the fact that Pauline did a really great job with the pattern (heck, you would never guess this is her first!) I had forgotten how much fun it is to sew with a stable fabric such as cotton. Not to say that sewing the collar was easy-peasy, but you know...

Modifications:
- A ton of things in the bodice. Won't go through it all, but basically all the normal adjustments I usually make to account for the following figure variations: pear shape, narrow upper chest, forward head and slightly-rounded upper back. That last one led me to add gathers right at the base of the neck under the collar and I quite like the result.
- I squared off the tip of the collar a bit for a more current look.
- I made the skirt less voluminous by removing about 20 inches in width at the bottom and maybe 25 inches at the waist. I concentrated the gathers bellow the four waist darts.


What I will do differently next time:
- Not cut the shoulders so narrow. I'm not sure where things went wrong here, but I think I made the mistake while comparing the pattern pieces with my bodice bloc. (See bellow. The shoulder/sleeve seam is weird!)

- For some reason, I only had an extra long zipper, and for some reason I felt that I needed to "get value for my money" by using as much of the zipper as I could in the side seam. Believe it or not, this led me to lower the pockets by 4 inches. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Apparently me. We now have to contort our shoulders forward to put our hands in our pockets. Yep...

Tips:
- The instructions call for double thickness of interfacing and if you're like me, you might be prone to thinking "I'm sure one layer will be enough." You must not succumb to this temptation. Just stick with the instructions. Now, my cuffs are not as nice and crisp as they should be.

All and all, it was a pleasure working with this pattern (which you can purchase over here  in downloadable PDF format for a very decent 8 euros). I look forward to seeing what Pauline Alice has in store for us in terms of pattern #2, #3 and beyond! Thank you for inviting me to be a pattern tester!