Christmas Dress! Still can't make things fit...

I made a dress for Christmas! Actually I made a dress that I mostly finished in October or early November but never finished fitting until December 24th. That way I could wear it to midnight mass to look great for my walk of shame out of the Cathedral. (Don't look at me, it wasn't my fault!) Pictures of this scandalous dress are few and those I do have are oddly lit, but hopefully you'll get the idea...

Disregard my rumples--I just got off work.

I used Butterick 6582 (the same I used for Jenn's wiggle dress that she NEVER GAVE ME PICTURES OF) and layered this ~carnelian red lace/cutout fabric hybrid--it's too sturdy to be lace but too hole-y to be a cutout fabric, is there another name for it?--with a nubby, tawny boucle-type wool blend that I shrank the dickens out of. It can't get much smaller! Here's a mega-close-up of the fabric.

Yeah! You don't know what part of the dress this is! It is like one of those pictures that you keep zooming out of until you figure out that it was a super-close-up of an old milkshake.

For a wiggle dress, it is surprisingly roomy. What that really means is that I still don't have the fit issues worked out. It might be a fabric selection issue or my determined nature to only make things in the wrong size, but it seems unavoidable. I keep hoping that I'll outgrow my mismeasuring/sewing stage. Heck, I can bike in this "wiggle" dress, that is wrong on ten levels! Also, check this out.

It's not a tumor.

What is with that shoulder lift? Looks like I need to do some minor disassembly, poke around there with a chopstick, then press that seam into the suburbs of Sacramento. Citrus Heights, I'm coming for you!

Without the protective sweater; with the protective dog.

Hopefully I'll be able to post the "2011 in review" summary soon. Stay tuned! If things get really crazy, I might even let you know what I've been doing in 2012!