Tuesday, 10 June 2014

How now brown babydoll dress

I thwarted my machine to conquer twin needle stitching, and I have thwarted the fit of the "Sew-U home stretch" babydoll pattern.  See here for unfortunate fit issues and sad faces on my cheap toile (which I am actually still wearing as a dress even though it sucks apples*).

* I don't have that many clothes.


I made the following adjustments:
  • Remove 3/4" from shoulder seams (yawn) as I always do
  • Make front neckline less deep
  • Make 1 1/4" full bust adjustment and rotate out the resulting dart (see here)
  • Take in a tapered amount on the side seams from 1 3/8" at the waist up to nothing at the underarm on both front and back pattern pieces
  • Add 1/4" elastic at the waist seam before gathering and attaching the skirt (it's a lot of weight and bulk for that seam to carry without stretching).
  • Remove 2 1/2" from the height of the sleeve cap to (a) match my smaller armhole from lopping off height at the shoulder seams and (b) I hated the gathers on the sleeve cap, so they're gone
  • Cut the sleeves down to cute cap sleeves for the summer
I had thought that £3/m was cheap for the first toile, and I splurged at £3.60/m for this brown interlock knit from myfabrics.co.uk.  I now know this to be expensive compared to the £1-£2/m I could have scored in Walthamstow.  Oh well.  I need another trip there to buy more jersey so that I can spend £12 to get another 6-12 dresses.

I have wet hair, not super greasy as this photo suggests: eugh!

I quite like brown, and I wanted to try sewing with interlock.  It's quite nice to handle: very drapey but quite stable and not particularly stretchy.  This fabric is a bit to shiny for my liking, but it was on sale and cheap.

Jersey dresses and cameras with self-timers balanced on clothes airers allow you room to swing your toddler around in his home-made shorts.

Despite the anger that the twin needle involved and the fixing of the machine and walking foot, it was totally worth it for the professional ready-to-wear look it gives!  Cheers for my birthday present, bro!  :-)

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