McCall's Dress progress

I have made lots of progress with the dress and hope to finish it this evening.  I thought I would share what I have achieved yesterday and this morning.

After basting the dress fabric side seams for fitting purposes, this was after inserting the zipper, I discovered I needed to take up some of the upper back width and was able to do this at the back princess seams.

I then had to adjust the back/side back and front/side front by changing from 5/8 to 3/8 at waist.

When you stitch the vertical seams first, adjustments like this are easier to do.

I learned something new recently about attaching a dress lining to the dress fabric by stitching the lining to the zipper first, then attach to the neckline. It is always a learning experience when reading other's blogs.  Sigrid posted about this method on one of her recent posts. I printed out how to do this from Amy at Sewaholic's website.

You can see from these photos how attractive this looks when completed.

I have used a similar method that focus is really on facings but it works with lining as well. 

Here is the dress with lining attached; next step is to attach the sleeves, then attach lining to back vent and hem!!

I may get this completed before summer ends yet; sewing takes longer to do these days but I am pushing for quality and fit.  I am having issues today with neck and shoulder pain by over staying too long at the sewing machine.  I had to take a break for awhile to let pain calm down.  I hate when that happens as it truly slows me down.  Tomorrow acupuncture which has truly helped.  That's how I spell relief.

More to share later.