Drum roll please!

Here it is!

 The zipper is on the dress:

I know, I know it looks a bit sloppy but I do plan on fixing it. And no it is not an invisible zipper because I HATE those things they never work! Have you ever had a dress with an invisible zipper that actually zipped up without getting caught? I have not. And you have to buy a special foot for your machine for those.

Now as for the how to I told you I found for zippers:

http://makezine.com/craft/101/sewing101_zippers/

I thought this tutorial was brilliant I had never hear of attaching a zipper this way and I did try with my dress but there was just too much fabric for my machine with all of the gathering so I did it the good old fashioned way with my own two hands.

Here is what the dress looks like on my dress form:

Unfortunately I was pretending to have a larger chest area when I was measuring (or maybe I was just hoping they'd grow by July 11th haha) so the top will have to be adjusted but I am pretty happy with the way it looks so far :)

And now for some side notes...

Side note 1:

check out this cute wallet I made for my cousin

 Made out of paper, soft lamination material, and thread

 Complete with a hidden pocket in the dollar bill spot.

Side note 2: Cleaning my machine (this will be informative)

Somewhere in the process of making my dress I noticed my machine was making a funny sound and decided I should get to the bottom of it so I took my machine apart. I want to mention here that is pays to buy the expensive thread because it is bound together a little better than the cheap thread and the cheap thread will not only leave more lint in your machine but will break a lot easier.

The above is what the bobbin case looked like before cleaning 

 Look how much lint was in there! You really have to clean out your machine often if you want it to function properly. With all the lint that builds up the parts do not move as well and will cause you a big headache.

I thought I had a problem in the top of the machine because of the weird noise my machine was making but it turned out I just needed to clean that out too it was filthy!

This is what's inside a sewing machine!

Happy Tuesday and thanks for reading