Sewing project progress: pink checked dress muslin, part II, and Jared's checked apron, part V

Last night I sewed my very first darts into my pink check dress muslin. I followed captainecchi*'s pointers on how to fix and sew them, and I would have taken hazliya*'s suggestion on pinking off the extra fabric inside, but my pinking shears were ridiculously dull. I wonder if it's possible to get them sharpened. Anyway, the process went quite smoothly. I worked according to the SEW, CLIP, PRESS method that supposedly professionial sewists use, where after ever seam you sew in, you immediately clip the threads and take it to the ironing board to press it. Well, I tied several knots in the tails before clipping like Lise suggested, but still. It did seem to slow things down a little-- my instinct would have been to do all the seams, then clip all the ends, then press everything --but it results in crisp-looking seams. I will work to get into the habit of this.

I also attached the muslin interfacing to the shoulder facings. The pattern recommends you use fusible interfacing, but I didn't have any, so I just repurposed this white muslin I had and sewed it to the pink check pieces.

I would have kept going, except the next step is to add a zipper for the back, which I still need to buy. My mom has offered to take me to a sewing supply store while I'm home for Thanksgiving, so maybe I'll take a scrap of the pink check home with me to look for a good color match.

Oh, and I also more or less finished Jared's black and white apron. I found better material for the neck and back straps-- it kind of reminds me of that woven nylon material that dog leashes are made out of, only thinner --and attached them the other day to Jared's specifications. He'd like me to put a plain black pocket on the front it, but other than that the piece is done.

Unfortunately I made a lot of mistakes with this. The biggest one I think was finishing the sides of the check before putting seam binding on them. It made for a whole bunch of layers of material in one small spot, which made the binding harder to attach and the machine have a harder time piercing through. Ah, well. At least I learned a lot, and still Jared is happy with it even if it's not the best-made thing ever.