Thursday 12 January 2017

Lady Renfrew/Skater-frew Frankendress

This fabric is from the market in Delft and it's consistently been in the wrong country while I dreamed about what to make with it.  The one thing I wanted was the stripes going down sleeves. For awhile I thought of doing a Named Geneva tee, but I made a bunch of them and was kind of tired of them so I lost interest and this kind of rayon - lightweight, but heavy, jersey, cool feeling - doesn't suit everything because it stretches so much.

Finally I decided to do a Lady Skater Renfrew frankendress. This has been done loads, but the most memorable to me is Lauren's.  It's the first time I used the cowl neck.  In order to combine the patterns, I applied all the neck stuff from the Renfrew onto the skater pattern.  They don't have the same seam allowances, but I honestly think I could have put the Renfrew cowl on the skater with no other changes, and it would not have looked much different.

Renfrew size 4.  Skater size 3.  It's my third skater with a third type of fabric and the same size, and it's interesting to me how each one is very different.  (Versions 1 and 2.) I thought I had way enough fabric with my two plus meters...so I was going crazy picking pieces of pattern...and then I got to the cowl.  The massive, fabric needy cowl.  Oops.  So I found a scrap of pale jersey to be the underside - I guess it's visible sometimes but luckily it matches really well and maybe it's kind of nice to break up the pattern a little bit.







I got worried halfway in that this fabric is too heavy to be a skater.  I didn't add the elastic at the waist because it is scratchy and I don't really understand how elastic in the seam allowance stabilizes the dress, anyway.  But.  Is this kind of dress doomed to drag downwards and fall apart?  How to avoid?  After wearing for one day I can see the stitches at the waist pulling. Does the elastic stop that from happening?

I don't know how much I like it.  I think it's cute but I kind of lost interest at some point.  I'm getting into moving phase again and I want to make make make (because travelling with fabric is heavy) but I don't really want to keep keep keep...


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