All I needed to do was aline the front pocket piece with the front skirt piece at the waist and side seams and pin them together.
The first step in assembling the bodice was interlining the bodice panels - front, midriff, and back - with cotton batiste. The pattern dose not say to do this, but the fabric that I'm using happens to have a little spandex in the crosswise grain for stretch, and in order to use the border print, the dress must be cut on the crosswise grain. If the bodice is not stabilized somehow, it will soon stretch out of shape. The pattern instructions do seem compensate for this by simply including the bodice lining in the waistline seam, putting the lengthwise stress on the lining rather than the fashion fabric. However, I'm plan to line the entire dress and want to use the lining to conceal the zipper tape, so the option of interlining seems better, in this case.
After pressing the pleats in place, I stitched through both layers along the inner crease of each pleat to keep the layers from separating (since the stitching is nestled inside the pleats, it won't show once they're basted in place).
Here's the bodice, with the front and back seamed at the shoulders. The repeat in the border print happened to be spaced just perfectly for cutting the bodice front with two roses at each shoulder. How neat is that?
