Strapless dress with boning

I am immensley pleased , I don't mind telling you, and even if I do say so myself ...  I have nearly completed the dress for Miss L.  It's ready for her fitting tomorrow which is making me nervous, but since it will be the third fitting - the first two with toile's, then I think it might be ok.  

It's taken me the best part of a week to cut this out, and sew it together, not least because the spotty fabric has driven me literally dotty, it's so fine and flimsy.  I had to lay it over sheets of paper, line it up exactly - no mean feat I can tell you, then lay the pattern over it, and cut.  A nerve racking experience if ever there was one, because this is ALL the fabric there is - no spare parts and as it is 100% pure silk with quite alot of 'stretch' - almost chiffony in texture, well you can guess!!  I had a small moment of near heart failure yesterday when one of the pins got stuck under my presser foot as I was sewing around the curve of the left boob which made a very wobbly line - talk about the most conspicuous place this could happen, and so a very very delicate operation commenced to unpick the extra tight stitches (due to aforementioned jam) and restore the boob to smoothness.  Luckily it worked out fine with no lasting damage, but it could have been a whole different story! 

The reason I am especially pleased is because I drafted and cut this pattern myself.  If somebody had told me even last year, that I would be able to do this, I would have thought them quite dotty!