First Formal

I made this dress for Morgan's Freshman Formal. It is the first of what I'm sure will be several "formals" I'll be sewing for my 5 girls. The choices at the stores were ridiculous - too short, tight, low, expensive, ugly...I now understand the couple of families I know of that have gone clear to Utah to buy formals.  I can't say that I loved sewing it - but it wasn't too bad. Things I'm glad I had or know how to do or figured out:

• Glad I had a good pair of pinking shears - like really good - use those JoAnn's coupons to get the nice Gingher or other really good brand - it makes a difference - the fiskar ones I got just don't cut it (no pun intended)
• an invisible zipper foot - I got this a few months ago, and it makes zippers so much nicer and invisible ones aren't as hard as I thought they would be - in fact I think they may be easier than a normal zipper. 
• that I've figured out how to do rolled hems on  my (Morgan's) serger.  I used that on the petticoat to do the seam and finish the edges of the main fabric. It is the best way to deal with lightweight, flimsy fabrics that tend to fray. 
• I found a tip for gathering tulle - you zigzag over dental floss. I have zigzaged over thick string before to gather tulle - but it would kind of snag and would occasionally get caught in the stitching making the gathering difficult.  You can't just gather tulle with a gather stitch because the threads break. The dental floss worked great (and since I left it in - if Morgan had a dental floss emergency while wear the petticoat - she'll have some handy - and it has a fresh minty scent). I think my next sewing gadget investment will be for a gathering foot for my sewing machine and/or the serger.
• Several years ago I got this Dritz Ruller Ezy-Hem Gauge with one of my extra 40% off coupons at JoAnn's - wasn't sure what it was but it looked like it would be handy. It is one of my favorite sewing tools - and it was really helpful with hemming this dress.
• I figured out that the width of a basic sewing measuring tape is 5/8 of inch (you know the ones that come in yellow, white, etc, are sixty inches long, have metal ends, cost less than a dollar, you have so many of cause you can't find one when you need it, and you have to roll up by hand and then your kids like to unroll like a yo-yo and then have you roll it up again over and over....)- am I slow or what? I've sewn for YEARS and never realized that. But it did come in handy while trying to line up the zipper teeth 5/8 of inch from the raw edge.
• don't watch really intense shows while cutting out a dress that you are making adjustments to on speciality fabric - it took me probably twice as long to cut this out because my hands were shaking from watching the Grey's Anatomy season finale.  Luckily I had the presence of mind to not actually cut the fabric until the show was over and I had double checked the layout and placement of all the pieces :o).
• when you lengthen a dress in the bodice, also do the back (figured it out before it was cut). And  if you add 3 inches to the empire-waist a-line skirt, adjust where you end the seam for the bottom of the zipper. I had a few panicky moments when it looked like the zipper was about 4 inches too short.

* I'm not sure if you can tell, but the fabric has glitter all over it -
so my sewing area is now covered in glitter too. Wonder how long it will be adding "extra sparkle" to my sewing projects?