Yammering Muse: The April Showers Dress

Guys, there are very few things you really need to know about this dress and they are as follows:

The buttons are vintage and cost me a quarter
The fabric was on sale at Joann's for $2.99 a yard
PASTELS!
I used a vintage dress placket zipper, and am now a slave to these kind of zips.
There ain't a thing wrong with the construction of this dress.
I. Freaking. Love. This. Dress. So much so, that I wore it again to go Swing Dancing yesterday. I want to have this dress's babies. We will live happily ever after, and all will be good in the world. I really, really, really, love this dress.

I learned a very valuable lesson while making this dress, well two technically. I learned that when it comes to sewing I am more of a Hare than a Tortoise, and rush through, not really reading the directions. Turns out, if you take your time and read the directions! your dress will come out looking like a million bucks. Even my mom said it looked incredibly well made. And if my mom said that about one of my sewing projects, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is well made, because she is not usually my biggest fan when it comes to sewing. My mom is an expert seamstress, and while somehow I have managed to disillusion you all into believeing that I am as well, I am not. At best I am an okay seamstress. Seriously, I make mistakes all over the place, rush through, and settle for less than perfect work. Well not anymore. I have another dress (my Swing Dress) that I made where I really took my time, did everything right, and it really shows, and that dress only took me about two days to put together. This one took about three days of after work hours stitching. Truth be told, when I rush through projects, it usually takes me longer because of how many times I have to re-do something, but if I give myself time and get in the mindset that I am not going to rush any of this, things turn out, pretty dog-on good.

The pattern is one I've had since sometime in 2009 and is the Collette Patterns "Parfait." This pattern is an absolute dream! The instructions are very clear (though in my instruction book there is a big typo, however Collette patterns send out an errata email back when I bought it), and easy to follow. I love it! Next time I make this I'm going to adjust the bust a bit because it is a tad large on me under the shoulders (those weird proportions of mine...). I also might lengthen the skirt a bit if I were to make this for more of an everyday dress. I was glad I had the forethought to wear shorts underneath on Sunday! But I love the versatility of this pattern too! It is a great year-round dress! I'd love to have this in a tweedy wool for winter, or some fun plaids for autumn, but it is equally charming in a lightweight cotton. I'm dreaming of making this up in a yellow eyelet or swiss dot. All I know is that if I could marry a garment of clothing, it would be this dress. I even do have another one in the making (in a most uncharacteristic colour at that!!), and it seems that I don't look too bad in pastels!