FO: Fit to be Tied Dress

I think I may be approaching the number of bows a normal person should have in their closet... not that that's going to stop me from adding more!

I basically copied this dress.  I can't figure out who the designer is, since I pinned it from one of those flash sale websites several months ago. When I saw it, I immediately knew that I wanted one, and that I could make one with my trusty Jalie pattern.  Jalie 2921 is probably my most often used pattern.  I've made one top, one other dress, and altered the pattern to be my basic t-shirt block.  And now, one more dress.

The bodice is Jalie 2921, one size smaller overall than usual, and also graded down an extra size at the waist.     I had quite the time with the tie - the pattern has you basically fit the top into the tube for the tie like a burrito so that the finish is clean (sorry, this is very hard to explain!!).  My problem was that I made a mistake when I was cutting and my tie ended up being half as wide, so it took a lot of squishing to get the top to fit into half the normal amount of space.  The skirt is from Butterick 5030, which is basically a slightly-less-than-half circle skirt.

Since I don't have a serger (sadface), and the overedge stitch I normally use with knits causes crazy distortion in fabrics with two-way stretch, I used a narrow zigzag to sew the seams.  The shoulders and waist are reinforced with clear elastic, something I haven't done before.  What did I learn? My machine thinks that clear elastic is a very delicious snack and attaching it is.not.fun.  Many four letter words were involved.  But it looks good, and hopefully will keep things from stretching out of shape.  The bottom is unhemmed; I had no interest in messing with a curved knit hem this week.

And you know what else? This is a solid color! And wasn't boring to sew! I may be coming around...

QUICK FACTS:
Pattern: Jalie 2921 for the bodice, Butterick 5030 for the skirt
Fabric: Rayon jersey knit from Fabric Mart - somewhere around 1.5 yds.