MAGAM Challenge: Finished March Garment - Vogue 8228

Hello everyone,
This is my finished garment for March - Magam Challenge. As I mentioned on my last post, this dress is based on Vogue 8228 view A and for the fabric I used strong blue linen from my stash, but it looks lighter in the picture than it is in reality.

Dress descriptions:
A straight, semi-fitted dress, mid-knee has princess seams, cut in armholes, center front slit and back zipper.

Sewing process:
As this is my first experience of working with vogue pattern, I decided to make a muslin first. I choose petite size 10 (according to the Vogue size) but after my muslin done, I realized that my size should be 6.
Then I work again in another muslin with size 6. Even so I have to make some adjustments,

• added 1.5 cm taller on the neckline
• reduced the length of the neck slit 3 cm and skirt front slit 6 cm
• reduced the side dress front and back 1.5 cm
• and make sway back adjustment

Here is my second muslin based on petite size 6 with adjustment,

After muslin done, I cut my fabric and start to work with the real dress. I sew the front dress pieces and back dress pieces. Sew it, clipped it and overlocked the raw edges.

I stitched the front dress at the center right sides facing, stitched the side of front and back dress right sides facing.
Then I sew the zipper. I didn't have any matching color zipper, so I use a very dark blue zipper. But before I sew it, I fused 1.5 cm wide fusible interfacing onto the wrong side of the center back. This method is very good to stabilize the zipper and very smooth finishes. As shown on the picture A and B,

Then I worked on the neck facing, here is the result
A - front  B- Back

And the last work on the dress is stitching the hem. My hemline ended up 6 cm (pattern suggestion should be 5 cm), I was very lazy to cut one more time - so I just stitched it and the result is fine :-)

A. I fused 6 cm fusible interfacing on the hem line - placed it 6 cm up from the bottom
B. Fold the fabric, press it with iron
C. Pin it around

A. I am very patient, so I prefer to baste the hem before stitch it
B. Then I hand stitched all around the hem line. Removed the basting. Done!

Here are more pictures of me wearing the dress, front and back views

 

And more picture of the dress on my dress form, front, side and back views

Well, I am very happy with how my dress turned out and I will definitely make more dresses based on this pattern on the future. Also every time I worked with a new pattern, I learned something new from it. And this time I learn how to reinforce seam with slit by cut two pieces of seam binding and sew it by hand in the wrong side of each garment. The result is fantastic and the seam binding will not show at slit :-)

Have a lovely weekend and see you soon on my Mad Men Dress!