My love letter to scuba (neoprene)

Hi All!

This is what I have for you today:

So I think the title of my post says it all, but let me just briefly expand that statement for you.  I love scuba because its:

• thick yet still light
• does not cause my sewing machine any grievances, which in turn keeps me happy
• does not need to be hemmed or have the seams finished
• and last but certainly not least... DOES NOT STICK TO TIGHTS in the winter (or any season I'm sure).

Seriously where have has it been all my life??  I can answer that quickly for you right now.  I was scuuured.  I may have previously been under the impression that scuba was going to be a pain the bEhind to work with.  Where did I get that impression you ask?  I have no frikin' idea.  Seriously, every blog I've ever read a review of scuba on has had good things to say about it, and there's always a fair amount of designers on project runway that break it out... and you know those guys are working under some serious time constraints (as a side note, yes, I am on team-I-love-PR, no shame).<3-pr can="" completely="" div="" fabricated="" get="" i="" in="" it="" mind.="" my="" nbsp="" no="" o="" only="" own="" prejudices="" scuba="" shame="" surmise="" that="" twisted="">

So despite my aforementioned preconceived notions, over stimulation, induced by browsing Moods shelves led me to purchase this fabric (so pretty, right?!).  Right after leaving, I was sure I was going to regret it.  To be fair, I did end up regretting the purchase slightly, but only because I didn't purchase enough.  I had asked for one yard and one yard they did indeed cut, not even an inch bonus.  Not gonna hate on that, but I sure would have been stoked if they had been a little generous, especially since this fabric is way more expensive than I'm used to. Regardless, next time I'll get 1.25-1.5, because I baaaarely got this dress to the finish line.   Hopefully it's not making any of your eyes twitch, but I'm sure you all noticed that the pattern of the fabric is A. not matched... anywhere and B. flows both up and down, depending on which panel you look at.  Hopefully what you didn't notice was that I had to piece the back.  Can you tell?? I hope not, because I made that little band on the back to cover it, mwah-ha-ha.

Some of you may have recognized the shape of this dress.  That could be for one of two reasons.  Maybe you remembering reading about a previous version here or maybe you had the original H&M dress that I bought for the explicit purpose of copying.  Yep, that's right folks.  This is a knock off of an H&M dress, not because it was some great innovative design but because the dress I bought fits like a second skin and I knew the pattern drafter in me couldn't walk away from that.  The only difference I made in this version was to add the little back strap to hid my piecing-shame and then to move the CB zipper to the side... because I added the belt.

If I made it again I might add an inch of length because I think I'm really pushing the short limits with this one and it's not even hemmed, but all in all I'm pretty dang happy with it.  Also is it me or does the hem look uneven here?  Maybe I need to revisit that... like right now.  :-O.

As always, thanks for reading!

Kten