Sewing a Dress in a Week
All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good... A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work... It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. ― Ira Glass
I've determined that, in order for me to get better at sewing, I have to sew. And knowing myself and how I like to learn, I won't do it if I have to do all of the little "beginner projects." I have to dive right in and do the challenging stuff and use the "good fabric." Because I just know that I will make mistakes no matter what kind of project or fabric I use. I may as well enjoy working with the materials while I am at it.
I've been hoarding collecting the beautiful Liberty Cotton Tana Lawn fabric for a couple of years now, ever since I was lucky enough to visit Liberty London in person a couple of years ago. I've diligently washed and pressed the fabric to prepare it for use... and then it has sat inside my closet waiting for me to get brave enough to use it.
A few weeks ago, I started daydreaming about making a dress out of it. I chose the Phoebe pattern from Seamwork, but I wasn't sure I would have enough fabric or courage to try it. It had darts, princess seams, and a lining, all things that were relatively new to me. I did some measuring, pondering, more measuring, and yet more pondering. And then I chickened out. I wasn't sure if I could make the measurements work to fit me, and I was afraid of running out of fabric.
And then I remembered that I was attending a wedding. And I figured I deserved a new dress.
I know lots and lots about altering knitting patterns to fit me, but sewing patterns with woven fabric are much less forgiving. I did some more measuring and more pondering and determined that I would make it wider at the waist, so I cut out the pattern and did some calculations and drew in new lines and cut out the fabric. I also decided to cut the skirt for the shortest length available, since the length for my size seemed way too long. I figured that, once the fabric was cut, there was no looking back:
I have also never sewn a dress with a lining before, and since the tana lawn is so lightweight, I decided to line the entire dress, rather than just the top half. I watched this video over and over and over again to learn how to line the top properly, and lo and behold, it worked!
After that, I figured I would sail right through the rest of it. I sewed the skirt, added the darts, and then went to put the bodice and the skirt together... and found I'd sewn the darts in the wrong direction. Gah. So I turned the skirt inside out and drew arrows and unpicked all of the darts (in both the lining and the skirt) and re-sewed it all up:
After that, I put the bodice and skirt together, added the zipper, and tried it on.
And I hated it. All the extra room in the waist made it look absolutely terrible on me.
So, I pinned and pressed and basted away at altered darts and princess seams until I got something that looked pretty good.
And then I tried it on again. Nearly there. It was still a bit too long, even though I'd shortened the pattern by nearly five inches at the start.
I chopped another three and a half inches off, sewed the hem, and voila! A dress!
I may still take the skirt in a bit to be less of an A-line and more of a pencil look, but I was getting so close to the wedding that I dared not chop any more of it up and end up with nothing to wear.
We traveled out to attend the wedding, and therefore I did not have any tripods or anything to take photos of the whole dress on, but I was pretty content with the result:
I wore this beach cover-up over it which kept me warm into the evening:
In all, it was a pretty good result, and I learned a lot. I feel a lot better about how I might alter patterns to fit because I know for sure that the patterns out there tend to be made for a body type that is nothing like mine. I have lots of plans to work through more of my fabric stash...
... except I miss my knitting. And I have an embroidery project, a weaving project, and a quilting project all sitting unfinished. If only I had more hours in the day...
Who am I kidding? I'd probably just nap more. Ah well.
Have a good week!
Comments