Almost finished the dress

So my dress is nearly complete and I make my husband go to the sewing room to admire it on the dummy. He says, "are you really going to wear that in public?" And I say, "I thought you weren't going to complain any more about my fabric choices?" And he says, "I can't help it. That fabric makes me feel like Kramer when he heard Mary Hart's voice on television."

I tried the dress on again and was surprised to see that it really wasn't as low in the front as I had feared. So I have put aside the blue eyelet lace I bought and am only going to trim the neck and armholes with blue bias tape.

Here, I've pinned the dress back on the dummy to decide how many buttons to put, at least on the bodice. I refuse to have a top that gapes between buttons and so I put pins in every two inches, which is awfully close together but works for me.

I chose some plain, slightly turquoise buttons and am putting them two inches apart on the bodice and 2 and 1/2 inches apart down the front of the skirt. They only had 15 matching buttons so I bought them all and have used 14 on this dress.

After sewing the skirt back to the bodice and trying it on, I realized that it is a bit loose in the waist. However, instead of having that sewed-in look, I think I am going to put a bit of elastic on the seam allowance at the back and that will snug the waistline up without making it difficult to breathe.