FO: my "20 minute" (or 2 hour) dress

I finished another dress! Hurray! This one was Faith Towers' supposed "20 Minute" Dress.

Did it only take 20 minutes? Of course not. It's like that knitting pattern, The 3-Hour Vintage Sweater pattern that I was suckered into knitting several years back, that took more like 3 days rather than hours.

Anyways, it was a faster sew. The problem is that jersey knit fabrics are really hard to cut. Especially if you're like me and try cutting it on carpet, and don't have anything to draw lines on the fabric while measuring because the pens don't show up on this sort of pattern. *sigh* The took most of the time. And frustration.

Joanne Fabrics didn't have much in terms of cool fabric prints in Jersey. I like this print, but really, it was literally their coolest choice.

My size is close to hers, even though I'm wider than her. I went with the rule of: armpit-to-armpit +2'' and Hip to Hipt+6 inches.  I only added 1'' to each panel.

Here's some great tips if you plan on sewing this: learn from the designer's photo! The reason why her's may have more charm than other versions sewn is because 1.) she has a really cool print that isn't monotonous, and 2.) (although she didn't go through the extra effort that I had to to achieve this) she naturally had that black strip running along the front of the dress that breaks up the print. If you don't have that naturally, do what I did and cut a 1.5-2'' strip and sew it to the front panels so they get sewn together while you are sewing down the center front (of course, you'll want to subtract from the front panels since you added extra length). It looks a whole lot better than sewing two patterns next to each other that may or may not match up. 3.) she doesn't mention how many inches down to sew the elastic casing...I placed it 3'' below the base of the armpit. 4.) In retrospect, it would have been easier to sew the casing before sewing the shoulder. You might want to do that. Otherwise, how easy is it to measure, pin and sew accurately along a "U" shape there? 5.) This added extra time too, but my fabric rolled in on itself, so I did end up sewing the bottom hem. It looked too "home-made" to not do that. I planned on this, so my panels ran 1.5 inches longer than hers (37.5'') to accommodate. 6.) I sew a line close to the the raw edges as protection against out-of-control fraying.

I'm still trying to make out the words. However, it's kind of like fabric graffiti. Neat.