Monday 9 March 2015

My floral dress has gremlins

I was hoping to have a photo of me wearing the dress today, however instead I came close to stomping on it from outrage.

I've never made so many mistakes in a garment since I started sewing 40 years ago. For once I took a single project to the sewing guild - usually I take a couple or three so I have a chance to switch projects if something is hinky or needs thinking about. This time I thought "Focus - take just the dress and finish it".

Ahem, that didn't go so well. First up I realised that I'd left the shirt pattern at home. The shirt you wonder, cos yes I'm using a different sleeve pattern piece, from my multi-use shirt pattern and hadn't cut that out yet. Without the pattern piece I was never going to get close to finishing the dress on Saturday. But I thought "Gird your loins, battle on and get all but the sleeves done. You can do it."

Except I didn't.

I let out the skirt front panel seams so that they would get closer to fitting the waist band, but they were still a good 1.5cm too narrow on each side. So I figured that I'd simply cut the waistband off at an angle. More ab I'm going to make it fit no matter what, rather than using finesse. Then when overlocking the waistband seams before I could top stitch them, I caught the other end of the seam in the overlocker and had a heartstopping moment when I thought I'd cut into more than the seam allowance. Thankfully not, but it's the zipper seam so I'm trying to decide if the reduced bulk is a good thing or if it's simply too close to the seam. (photos another time).

I then pinned the side seam together only to find the bodice seams didn't match up. The front was 2cm (3/4inch) shorter than the back. 1/8th inch or 3mm I could happily fudge, but not 2cm!

It felt like my brain had melted & dribbled out my ears (perhaps) as I checked I wasn't imagining it. Investigating it turns out that I'd sewn the bust dart 2cm larger on that side. How or why I have no idea, but this is the point the urge to stomp and/or burn it came upon me. I packed that sucker up and decided I'd tackle it another day.

It's not just lost it's [new project] mojo, it's a disaster zone that I'm not wanting to wear the minute its done.

3 comments:

  1. Oh no! We all have moments of brain-melt-ear-dribble. =) Move on to something else that sparks the mojo and don't worry about this dress!

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    1. :D I spotted another glitch this morning - the waistband/yoke ended up 1cm narrower on the side where I also sewed the dart larger.

      I'd blame pixies if I believed in them. Pixies are mischevious, elves are industrious. Such is my knowledge of fairytales.

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  2. Hmm. Somehow my smiley face ended up looking like whatever that is. Let's try this again.

    =)

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