A Piece of the Pi

Happy Pi Day of the Century!  Today is 3/14/15, which is a close approximation of the number pi.  While Pi Day is celebrated every year, it's only once a century that the approximation comes this close.  As a giant nerd, I have a party planned for tonight, with pies, quiche, and pizzas on the menu, along with pi-shaped cookies.

Regular readers might remember that I seem to have a thing for making dresses with food on them (I guess I'm the Weird Al of the sewing world?).  It makes me feel a bit juvenile, but obviously not enough to stop me.  So it's no surprise I had this fabric in my stash.  I had purchased it with the intention of making a dress for Pi Day, but with my sewing mojo being what it is these days (or rather, what it isn't these days), it just sat in the stash until Friday of last week.  I decided I must pull out all the stops and see if I could make a dress in a week.

I went with a dress I had already made (McCall's 6071, in the Haunted Mansion fabric), since I could save a bit of time by having the pattern already cut, and I would know anything tricky that went along with it.  I did the bodice of view C and the long skirt of view A.  I spent maybe 90 minutes on Friday night cutting the dress and sewing the bodice.  I did the skirt sides and the hem on Saturday, finishing up the rest on Sunday afternoon.  All in all, I probably only spent four or five hours on this in total.  It's a very easy dress, but I am still quite surprised at how fast this came together.

The only modification I made was my usual shortening of the straps.  The dress could have stood to be lengthened a bit, but it would have been tough in the fabric allotment I had (the pattern calls for 3 1/8 yards and I had only 3).  (Side note: I moved my sewing room to the larger spare bedroom - now that it's empty of my ex-husband's stuff - and must have screwed up Azzurra's measurements in the move.  Her bust was a bit too small and she seems to be several inches shorter than she was.  So when I say the dress could have stood to be lengthened, it wouldn't end up dragging on the floor like it is in these pictures.)

So, as I said previously, this is a very easy dress.  This would be a good project for an absolute beginner.  The only challenges in this version are the darts in the bodice and inserting the zipper.

 So go have a piece (or several pieces) of pie, contemplate transcendental numbers, and happy Pi Day!