Throwing caution to the wind?

When I was in Chicago, I was lucky enough to spend time with the fabulous Ann of Gorgeous Things and Gorgeous Fabric and, of course, see her wearing several of her gorgeous creations, including this dress.  The pattern, McCalls 5974, was the absolute best pattern of 2010 (according to the collected wisdom of the reviewers at the PatternReview site).  Well, I didn't own it.  In fact, for some reason McCalls is probably the brand of (readily-available) pattern I own the fewest of.  And I have a quite extensive pattern collection.  

However, I do have a healthy respect for the collective wisdom of the reviewers at PatternReview, and for Palmer & Pletsch, but most of all for Ann, so I decided to go out on a hopefully-pretty-solid limb and buy it.  It certainly didn't hurt that McCalls patterns were on sale for $0.99 at Joanne's when I made a hurried tourist pilgrimage to one of the Chicago outlets of that venerable chain while en route to the airport to fly home.  In fact I do believe that all 3 of the sewers who were in the car and took the detour to Joanne's also bought it on the strength of Ann's recommendation.

I also bought some rayon/lycra jersey while in Chicago.  (Surprise!)  I had mentally set it aside for the faux wrap version that Ann was wearing, but sadly there is not enough since those ties are fabric hogs!  So I cut out the other version, which is equally highly endorsed not only by Ann but also by the PR folks.

But I really wanted that faux wrap version in my closet too, so I went digging in stash, where I found a sufficient length of another jersey print, purchased at last year's Montreal PR Weekend.  (By cosmic coincidence, this year's event is taking place right now, in Chicago and the participants were at the site of my purchase, although they won't have found any more of this print since we bought it all in April.)

So I'm cutting out the wrap version too.

Notice I haven't said anything about sewing up version 1 in my Chicago jersey.

Yes.  I am cutting two garments out at once from an untested pattern from a brand I barely have any familiarity with.  What a risk taker I am!  What could go wrong???

I've got a family event coming up next weekend in Montreal for which it will be quite nice to have a new dress.  Stay tuned...