This exciting pattern popped up on my radar sometime early this year. I thought it might be just the right amount of gathering. Plus a free dress pattern! Plus by an Italian sewist! How exciting.
The pattern is here.
There is a video tutorial but no instructions.
There are seam allowances included, thank god. Things never go well for me when there are not seam allowances already included.
I cut an Italian size 40, which is about usual for me.
My exciting quilting cotton is an aboriginal print! I got it at the quilting shop in Sedona after seeing online that they stock it. I have a few more which you will be seeing soon. The ladies were a bit befuddled by an excited garment sewist in their quilting shop but they were very gracious as I pulled out every single bolt and strew them across the floor of the shop to help make my decision.
The only mess I made was that I decided not to add sleeves, since cap sleeves have a 2% chance of not looking ridiculous on me and I didn't want to mess this one up. But I didn't really plan ahead with that and I sewed the neck and the sides of the straps with the lining before thinking about how I needed to burrito in order to get a good clean finish. So I had to use the terrible Vogue method of sticking one strap back through it's front and sewing that tiny tube together. This method is bad because it's hard to get a good finish on it, but I guess overall it's as effective as the burrito method. I did some understitching on the neck but not on the sleeves (laziness, and so awkward).
My zip went in ok more or less. I'm using a borrowed Janome now (hence no more complaints about the borrowed Singer) and I noticed something: the invizible zip foot on the Janome doesn't have a centered needle. So on the right side of the zip, it eats the invisible zip into the stitches, and on the left side, it's not actually invisible. In fact, my Janome in New Zealand did the same thing. Food for thought.
The lining is just for the bodice, and I thought about how to tack it down. The only place it can be attached at the waist is at the gathered patches, so I pinned it down to figure out whether I could stitch in the ditch, but I haven't done it yet. It would be tricky to make an entire lining for this dress without copying a bunch of pattern pieces to get rid of the gathers, although certainly possible.
Anyway I like my dress! It's sort of a muslin as I didn't finish the seams of the skirt, but I'm moving really soon so it's part of my crazy rush to get things done. I think the aboriginal design is a bit too busy on this - I would use a solid color on the side panels next time and leave the center to be the wild part.
The pattern is here.
There is a video tutorial but no instructions.
There are seam allowances included, thank god. Things never go well for me when there are not seam allowances already included.
I cut an Italian size 40, which is about usual for me.
My exciting quilting cotton is an aboriginal print! I got it at the quilting shop in Sedona after seeing online that they stock it. I have a few more which you will be seeing soon. The ladies were a bit befuddled by an excited garment sewist in their quilting shop but they were very gracious as I pulled out every single bolt and strew them across the floor of the shop to help make my decision.
The only mess I made was that I decided not to add sleeves, since cap sleeves have a 2% chance of not looking ridiculous on me and I didn't want to mess this one up. But I didn't really plan ahead with that and I sewed the neck and the sides of the straps with the lining before thinking about how I needed to burrito in order to get a good clean finish. So I had to use the terrible Vogue method of sticking one strap back through it's front and sewing that tiny tube together. This method is bad because it's hard to get a good finish on it, but I guess overall it's as effective as the burrito method. I did some understitching on the neck but not on the sleeves (laziness, and so awkward).
My zip went in ok more or less. I'm using a borrowed Janome now (hence no more complaints about the borrowed Singer) and I noticed something: the invizible zip foot on the Janome doesn't have a centered needle. So on the right side of the zip, it eats the invisible zip into the stitches, and on the left side, it's not actually invisible. In fact, my Janome in New Zealand did the same thing. Food for thought.
The lining is just for the bodice, and I thought about how to tack it down. The only place it can be attached at the waist is at the gathered patches, so I pinned it down to figure out whether I could stitch in the ditch, but I haven't done it yet. It would be tricky to make an entire lining for this dress without copying a bunch of pattern pieces to get rid of the gathers, although certainly possible.
Anyway I like my dress! It's sort of a muslin as I didn't finish the seams of the skirt, but I'm moving really soon so it's part of my crazy rush to get things done. I think the aboriginal design is a bit too busy on this - I would use a solid color on the side panels next time and leave the center to be the wild part.
I think it looks great on you. Yes it is busy but it's fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks Claire, I've worn it loads! I felt a bit silly initially with the gathers but it's super comfortable.
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