My first dress

This is my first attempt at buying and working with a commercial pattern:

This is Butterick #4443, view E (without the ribbon).

The material is a red cotton poplin that I got from Dunelm in Bristol. I think it's meant to be a cushion fabric. I picked this one out of my then-modest fabric stash because, bluntly, I was sure I was going to screw up and plain red cotton seemed like the easiest material to replace. I bought a piece of red lining fabric from John Lewis to match.

There were simpler things I could have picked for a first dress. The skirt part was simple enough, but the bodice is princess-seamed and fully lined. I found out that "princess seams" were a thing literally the day before I started writing this post. I just sewed it together and assumed it would work. Also I had no idea what understitching was, and looked it up basically to see if I could skip it (I decided I couldn't, and now I know how to understitch!)

I made the dress WAY too big and I didn't realise until I'd put the lining in, so the seams have been taken in quite a bit on the inside. The main thing wrong with this dress is the shoulder seams - I didn't understand what the instructions were getting at, so I just stitched them together and there's a quite obvious seam. It's also puckered in a few places and I didn't bother staystitching the neckline (I didn't know what that was), so the V-neck is not as... V-neckish as it could be. Though I decided I actually quite like that.

Me? Silly? How dare you. 

I really like this pattern. It suits me and it was easy enough for my rank beginner self to do with only minimal help from Youtube. I am pleased. Pleased enough that (spoiler) you'll be seeing this pattern again. And possibly again.