This dress, Butterick 5315, really shouldn’t be difficult to sew. If that’s the case, why do I feel as if I have met my mortal enemy and he is besting me at every turn?

The fabric is dreadfully difficult to work with. It’s a polyester silky type I bought at Joanne’s. I expected the slipperiness to cause some problems, but didn’t anticipate this fabric’s resistance to any sort of shaping. Press a crease in it? Yeah right. The fabric is also prone to fraying. I’ll be lucky if there are enough threads left to keep me covered once this is done.

But the print is cute, so I’m marching forward.

Let’s talk about the sleeves. Setting in sleeves can be tricky. I expected that, but since I’ve done it a few times before, I wasn’t too worried. They went in just fine. Problem is, when I trimmed one of the armhole seams, I cut a nice big hole in the sleeve.

Take 2. Put in a new sleeve. All you have to do is look at the picture up top there to see what happened. I accidentally matched up the sleeve’s seam with the yoke seam instead of the side seam on the bodice–so, the shoulder is pointing forward instead of up. Real cute.

I could have screamed, like this guy:

But, I’m proud to say I didn’t. I tried to be more like this:

I calmly picked apart the sleeve again and sewed that sucker in–the right way this time.

I’m so eager to put the finishing touches on this and work on some easier projects to restore my equilibrium. My nerves are as frayed as the fabric!