Elisalex Dress took my holiday away

My Christmas was stolen by this dress. I am drained from making this Elisalex Dress by BHL. Let me go back to my post in October where I was saying I just started working on this dress. And guess what? it dragged on for two months. I thought it should be a quick job but it ended up I almost abandoned the half done dress. Anyhow, I forced myself to finish it today and here it is:

Love the look from the back, specially the neckline <3

Fabric
I used cotton satteem with lovely floral prints and poly lining. The prints turns out very pretty on the dress, I was surprised.

Fitting and pattern changes
If you know about this pattern, you would notice my tulip skirt is much slimmer than those on their models. This is the biggest problem! I spend countless hours to fit the skirt. I made a muslin (I actually made it on real fabric but the first time of sewing didn't go well so I made it muslin.) and I really don't like the big tulip skirt. It is humongous! No way I would wear it out onto the street!

Not a fan of the giant tulip... I feel like I'm wearing a costume.

Initially I also wanted to make the sleeves but the sleeve cap/crown is very flat on the pattern and it just doesn't fit my arm (as shown on the above photo). Grr.. I had to do a sleeveless version.

I also reduced the folds on the pleats and slimmed down the skirt a lot. This is NOT an easy process. I stitched up many seams on the skirt to test how much to take away and it took up a lot of time.

Finally... A smile on my face because it's DONE.

I found another fitting issue after I completed the dress. Look at the side view below. The side seams swaying towards the front, instead of being vertical to the ground. It's very unpleasant. I am just not sure what went wrong.

The side seams are pointing to the front.

Constructions
The dress is very straightforward to make. I find the instructions are not the best as they omit some steps and the order of the steps is a little bit confusing where steps for different versions are inserted in between. However, By Hand London has the most comprehensive sew-alongs on their website and I highly recommend checking out their blogs as part of the pattern instructions.

I admit I got more practice on sewing princess seams, sewing pleats and adding linings on invisible zips as these are the major techniques used in this pattern. For princess seams, I always like to press them open and clip on the curves. It gives very smooth seams.

Love the princess seams and the pleats

A vintage look

 Material list:
Cotton Sateen (140cm wide): 1.4 m

Overall 

 This is the second BHL pattern I made after my Georgia Dress. I encountered fitting issues with both patterns and I am not sure if I will buy another patterns from them.

Misc

How is everyone's Christmas/New Year Break so far? Busy sewing? I made some bunting as my Xmas project this year. The fabric I bought has got the print and the pattern and the cutting line. It’s very straight forward to make. I also bought the ribbons with the Christmas print. Doesn't it feel Christmassy?