New sewing project: pink check dress muslin #1

I have decided that I would really like to get back to sewing as my next focused endeavor, and so in the company of Steph crocheting a hat and Rachel studying anatomy, I began work on a project to make a dress.

The very first time I ever tried to, very early on I made a cutting mistake that threw off the whole project. Pissed at myself, I kind of bulled through to keep going, and my impatience lead to more mistakes. So this time I'm taking it slowly and carefully, checking my work and making sure not to go too fast.

I have a pattern for a simple sheath dress, not too many seams and probably not too complicated a fit, that I figure is a decent place to start with dressmaking. I am making this dress out of some cotton fabric I got cheap on eBay, a pink and white check that really isn't my style but is fine for a muslin. I was originally planning on using it to make placemats, but it was the only ream of fabric I had long enough pieces of. This time I laid out the pieces very carefully, making sure to iron everything and match up fold lines and be certain of proper layers.

You'll see it has only four pattern pieces: a front that is cut on the fold, a back which is done in two pieces, and front and back facings to reinforce the neck and shoulders. The self-facings needed to be interfaced, so I ironed some plain white muslin I had in my fabric box and laid out out on top of the pink check. I checked everything carefully to match how the front facing needed to be cut on the fold, but the back facing needed separate pieces, all of which needed matching interfacing.

As I said, I want to take this very slow and carefully, so the one other thing I did last night was try to pin in the darts. that go on the sides of the bust and down the center of the dress. The instructions on the pattern were not great and I only know how darts work in a theoretical sense; while I've pinned them into the backs of costume jackets, I've never actually sewn them before. I looked up a tutorial this morning, so I may redo them, but here's what they look like for now. I will certainly check them before I sew them. At least they seem to have ended up more or less in the right place; transferring them from the pattern proved tougher than I thought.