1960's Dress Pattern - "Simplicity 4675"

I threw myself in at the deep end a little. Thinking along the lines of “if you don’t try something that looks hard soon you never will” I settled on 'Simplicty 60's pattern No. 4675' in View 1. I chose a burgundy cotton, which again came from my stash (what will I do when I run out of stash material?)
 
There are a couple of things that I was a little concerned about and they did indeed prove to be tricky.
 
The facing on the neck I managed to (just about) get right, it has a tiny gather in it but as I have decided I’ll be making this dress again at some point, I’m using this as a test dress. I’m sure I can get away with it being a little scrappy in places.
 
The sleeves are more than a little puffy for ones which are meant to be set in, but in all honestly I lost the will to live after trying again and again to get them perfect. Advice needed: can someone please explain to me how I am meant to get them without any gathering? I have read a fair few tutorials, looked at videos and I still can't get it right. Is it just a case of practice makes perfect or am I missing some vital step here? Any advice would be appreciated.
 
The zip closure at the top isn’t perfect but it’s the first time I’ve done a zip like this, which is overlapped on one side. I think I maybe just didn’t pin it where I meant to when sewing it in, but again this is something I can improve on for next time. I did find it incredibly fiddly though, I think I just get too excited about wanting to finish something and it all goes to pot.
 
The part which I thought would be the most tricky, namely the ruffle, turned out to the the easiest out of all of it. Which was a nice surprise! I am finding the simplest looking parts to be the most time consuming. Lesson learnt.
 
Hopefully the next time I make this dress I’ll be able to correct past mistakes, it’s certainly been a learning curve but overall I’m very happy with it and even happier that I’ve lost the weight to actually fit in it!
 
*Originally posted on www.staceystitch.com in August 2013