Well, I washed the fabric by hand and hung it outside to dry on the balcony of our apartment. I absolutely loathe the washer and dryer in our apartment complex. The washer leaves other peoples' lint all over your clothes (ew) and the dryer costs 25c. for 10 minutes. So we try to avoid using it if at all possible. I would just have to handwash and dry the finished garment. No big deal. To make a long story short, the fabric froze and Rae-Rae was very distraught. 

After my fabric had thawed properly, I laid it out to cut. Somehow, I didn't have enough fabric. Upon review of the pattern envelope, I realized I'd read the yardage wrong and that what I'd thought to be the yardage for view B, was in fact only part of the yardage for part of view A ...and well...My original intent was to make the dress entirely out of the homespun. Now I would have to find a secondary fabric (or, primary really...) as I'd gotten the fabric on clearance and I'd bought the rest of the bolt!

So to Joann I went, wandering the aisles, overheating in my coat and scarf, clutching a little scrap of fabric, no doubt looking like a lost dog. For a while I contemplated a "luxury" fabric to contrast the unindulgent nature of the homespun, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. (I found several luxury fabrics that I wanted to buy for other projects though!) Nothing quite made sense. I eventually settled on a wine coloured linen. The texture of the linen went nicely with that of the homespun and the colors miraculously worked together. The linen had a lovely weight as well, and opened the dress up for fall/winter possibilities.

The construction of the dress was simple enough, and went very quickly. Where I got hung up however, was on the seam binding. The first color I tried - brown - didn't work. I thought a cream would be the solution. Nope. So then I tried taupe. The taupe was just alright, and I'd managed to finish the majority of the edges with the dress with it when I realized I actually hated it. And I hated it even more than the brown I tried in the beginning! Then I found a lovely sew along over at edelweisspatterns.com for this dress where she uses double sided seam binding - as the pattern calls for - but she uses it to turn the fabric under so that the seam is only bound on the inside. 

It was so incredibly useful! I just wish I'd found her sew-along at the beginning of the experiment! (Please don't mind the bare feet or that I'm slightly  pigeon toed. It's an issue that I'm already aware of.) 

Overall, I'm alright with how the finished project turned out. I made a size 10 and made the darts larger. Changing the method of finishing the dress, did reduce the overall size however and I think next time I would start with a 12 and take it in slightly that way I have a little more ease... I would also make the dress entirely out of linen (or some other decently weighted fabric.) The homespun is a little too light and the inner layer tends to ride up during wear. I also like the idea of having a single fabric on the shoulders. The abrupt switch in pattern/texture I think might look a little clumsy.