Today’s dress is one of my favorites:

I blogged about it last  year (there’s a picture of me in it at that post, with bonus surprise lexicographers!) It’s from this pattern, whichI really like:

Even though the finished skirt is nowhere near as full as the pattern envelope would suggest. And anyway, I put pockets in it (copying those of Simplicity 1577, natch):

I’m very happy with how the print matched at the waistline:

The zipper here is about a C+. I have come up with an invisible zipper grading scale, would you like to hear it? After the picture:

Zipper Grading System:

A zipper: can’t see it, truly invisible except for the pull, waist seam perfectly matched;

B zipper: puckering or  indication that zipper exists (besides the pull); no zipper tape visible;

C zipper: zipper tape visible;

D zipper: unwearable, must be ripped out and redone;

F zipper: makes entire dress unfixable, might as well cut the thing up for quilt squares.

Here’s the sleeve, finished with bias binding:

And the back. I’m just going to believe that I don’t look from the back what my dresses look like from the back — my dress form is very persnickety and always catches the material across the back:

Here’s a picture of the fabric scale, just because I found it in my Flickr set:

 

I really like this dress because: it fits well (dress form back view notwithstanding); it’s formal enough to give a talk in but comfortable enough to enjoy myself in; and also, I like that brick.jpgnk AND broken plaids. A twofer! I usually wear it with a black cardigan and penny loafers.

And in The-Hundred-Dresses-The-Book news — if you’ve already read it, would you consider leaving a review somewhere? (Maybe Amazon?) It’s definitely one of the things that people use to decide whether they will choose The Hundred Dresses over, say, this one.