Progress!

 Over the weekend I did some cutting! I now have all the panels and facing for the skirt half of the dress, plus the three main bodice panels.
I didn't have the best surface to work on, I was using my mattress as a cutting table! It was only after cutting out the four skirt panels that I realised the small coffee table next to the bed was a better bed than the combination of mattress and clip frame backing I was using. Oh and I probably should have ironed the old dress pieces too... Laziness is to blame.

 

I laid out all my pieces to make sure they'd fit alright and pinned them in place, then I cut around them as best I could - I think flatter pieces and more pins would have helped.

Now I have a pile of dress pieces waiting to be sorted out and sewn together, hopefully soon to be joined by the rest of the dress pieces.
I must remember to keep each piece with its corresponding old dress piece so I have some help with where to fold and hem each bit. And I *must* remember to do the darts...
I haven't totally decided the order in which I'll assemble the dress, but I think lots of it will depend on what's tucked into where. The button placket must be one of the last things to go on as it covers the ends of all the intersecting seams. Breaking it up into mini-projects appeals (divide and conquer as CS lecturers call it), The collar and pockets lend themselves to this pretty well.
If there's any more progress before mid September then I'm probably not revising as much as I should be, that or I'm using it as a way of keeping myself sane in the face of principal ideal domains and factor rings.

In a fit of wild optimism today I bought this pattern:

It was 99p in Oxfam and these dresses look very much like the sort of thing I'd like to be wearing when it's hot. Not that I'll get anywhere near this pattern for a good few months! Oh well, I can dream...