Vogue 2960 and Fun with Photoshop

Here is Vogue 2960 in a floral polished cotton.  It is fully lined in a polyester/silky black lining.    Here I am in a Paris street frolicking in my retro dress and heels.

Here is the back of the dress where I am still in the same sunny street in Paris.  Sort of.  The photo was actually taken in what used to be our spare bedroom in front of a green screen.

I have been looking at all of the lovely pictures people from exotic places take of them in their dresses, so I thought I would try my hand at photoshop to put myself somewhere nicer.  I actually live in Phoenix (where it is currently 348 degrees F in the shade) in a house on a lot with no back yard to speak of and even if it were cool enough to take photos, the best I could do is our dead garden for a backdrop.  We don't start planting until the end of October when it cools off, which is no good for photos

Here is the pattern cover for Vogue 2960.

I made this dress before - it was two years ago when I first started sewing.  I remember spending weeks on it and in the end it didn't fit right, it didn't look good and the inside was an utter mess.  I was so frustrated by the bound button holes.

This time went much better! Here are the bound button holes.  They aren't perfect, but I am happy with them.

Here is the inside of the dress.  I still had some issues with getting the button holes straight (let alone the bound part), but this version is so much nicer.  I still think that the instructions for this dress are confusing.  No wonder this didn't turn out when I tried to sew it.  You really have to already know how to do these techniques to understand the instructions.

I was going to sew some horsehair in the hem, but the cotton is so stiff I just ended up folding the hem over twice.  I serged the bottom of the lining. It took about a day and a half to make.
Details:
6 yards of polished cotton from SAS: 24.00
5 yards of black lining from fabric.com: 5.00
Buttons from JoAnns: 3.00
Total: $32.00
Here is what it actually looked like when we took the photos for this dress.

...and one more photo of the dress in a place I have never been.