The dress, including obligatory "nosy cat" photo:
Close up of the applique detail on the hem:
This is a very clever pattern. It slips over the head, and the shape comes from the ties. The pattern calls for buttons at the straps, but it would be very easy to skip the buttons and make the straps continuous. The pockets are nice and deep, and set into the seams. The one place I struggled in the sewing was the gathers over the bust. It turned out, trying to make the gathers meet the corners of the front panel without sticking out required more pinning than I usually do.
The dress went together fairly quickly (it took about three evenings start to finish, not including the applique). The one dumb thing I did was, as I was trimming the bottom of the skirt to even it, I cut the ends of the ties off. D'oh! The ties weren't long enough without the ends, so I sewed them back on with heavy "cross stitches," as if I had intended to do that. Problem solved!
-LibrariAnon (formerly Peregrine)