Blue velvet Audrey dress

While I have a load of previous sewn garments to show off, I'm going to save them for a really lazy day and instead start whining about my lastest projects.
The good news is I'm drafting my own pattern, using the Aldrich 'Metric Pattern Cutting for womenswear' book.
My fabric choice is a lovely blue velvet with a bit of stretch that I picked up on a remnants table in France last year (yes, that's what I do on holiday) i had wanted to make loads of different things with this stuff, but as winter and winter-desperation set in early this year, most of it has gone to lovely blue velvet curtains.

So what's left is enough for a minidress.

Now you don't know me at all, but with such a small amount of fabric available and a very new and negligible ability to draft my own patterns do you suppose I made a muslin?

If you so wisely said yes, you would be wrong.

Which has led to the following problem in the armhole:

Now, do I take the pieces apart and redo the whole thing? No I don't. I add little triangles of velvet to the missing armhole pieces, telling myself that blue velvet is forgiving.
(While we're at it, did I prewash my fabric, did i take it to the dry cleaners? Hell no.)

So we'll see how that turns out. (BTW, just to make any other sewers really cringe, all seams are directly overlocked, no basting, no pinning either) Im not really bragging. These are things I need to learn not to do.

In other news, Im making a shirt for Giuseppe. To do this I could have drafted a pattern, but it was late, and my pattern book (for menswear) is in Italian. Too hard. So instead I'm copying a short sleeve shirt that he likes.


I don't know if other people do this. I lay the garment on a rug and pin around the seams. Seems to work!
I have one of those wheely marker things too, and that can help transfer markings to the paper underneath.

There. So I have a real sewing post up finally!