Not all sewing projects are created equal.

Sometimes despite the best of intentions and efforts sewing projects just don’t work out the way you want.  It is ok to admit that the reality of a garment does not always measure up to the soring expectations of the dream.  My family and I moved a few months ago from my mothers place to a place of our own.  All our stuff came out of storage and is currently sitting in the back room.  Sufficed to say that the new place does not have nearly as much space as the old place and we need to cut down our crap and as a result I have been going through a lot of sewing stuff.

This is why I have re-evaluated my stash, which is quite sizable and why I am having to reconsider my wardrobe, including handmade items and eventually when I get to those boxes my costume collection too.  I can’t keep everything and in having to make tough choices I am also having to face the reality that there is projects I should never have kept, they just weren’t good.

Some of these cock ups never made it to finished product because I realised part way through that it just wasn’t working – but at the same time for some insane reason I have kept it part finished, collecting dust and taking up space.  The perfect dress is a good example of this.  It sits there hem not done and in no way on earth that it will ever fit me.

Others I did get to the end of, possibly I was even delusional and proud of at the time.  Take for example this 1960’s shift dress.  

I remember that I really liked the bust shaping in the pattern and the back belt.  But the material, a cotton sateen, is all wrong for the dress.  The shaping that I loved in theory in practice was nigh on impossible with my skill level at the time to get even and neat.  The fit is just all wrong and whether that is my body shape or my sewing skill or the fabric weight or a combination of any or all of these things is still a bit of a mystery.  I do remember that as the pattern is for a 32.5 inch bust I had to add 3.5-4 inches and used the slash and spread method, which always has varying degrees of success.

Thing is we often share our success with pride but rarely do we share our failures with each other – which in some ways seems backwards as you learn far more with failure.  When we do find a shared failure  it is often masked behind a don’t recommend pattern, as if somehow all the issues are someone else’s fault.  So this post I dedicate to owning my own shit and my own failings, accepting that I can do better and I will do better and clearing out all the rubbish that just didn’t work.

The unsalvageable will be going in the bin and the unwearable either following suit or facing major modification to be wearable.  Like the boxy dress.  I used a good cotton for the spotted skirt but  mixed that up with a cheap crappy cotton for the top – what a rookie error.  I intend to remove the bodice re-gather the skirt on a waistband and turn the unflattering dress into a very flattering skirt.

For so long I have been far to passive about my work, it really isn’t good enough.  Not because it is bad but because I could do better, with a little more patience and planning.  Its often small things, the finishes where I am lacking.  Failing to clip in or iron fell as I go.  Failing to clip off the excess strings at the time I finish each one rather than trying to find them all at the end.  Rushing a zip in rather than taking the time to iron them open and get the seam right in that line.  Like this 60’s tunic style dress, which is made entirely out of cheap shit polyester suiting.  This is the back of the neck where I have never dealt properly with the zip, and the bottom of the zip that isn’t correctly fitted into the dress, and the pockets being poorly placed, and, it can’t be ignored, completely overlocked in white thread. (Sorry I can't for hte life of me remember which pattern I used)

Near enough I have always treated as good enough, but after a year where I could not wear much of my handmade clothes I am looking back at them with a different eye.  I don’t want to be seen in a lot of them – how embarrassing that I did wear them in public.  Its not all bad news though, some of them I still love, many I just can’t bear to part with even though they don’t currently fit me.  In better news I am shrinking post having my son – and by shrinking I mean I am 10kg down from my pre pregnancy weight so maybe someday soon These beauties will once again see the light of day. 

Until then I promise to be more honest with myself in assessment of my work.  With any Luck the next time I fail to meet my expectations it will not be because I didn’t try my best.

Floral Beauty

I have previously spoken about this Butterick Pattern, in the perfect dress post, lamenting the horrid size issues I had with the wiggle version. This version I actually made first and love and it did at the time fit me. The only piece that this style shares with the wiggle is the facing and the fake cross front. I used neither when making this dress and instead reversed the full front piece to make it actually a cross over top. The entire dress was lined (due to the see through nature of voile) so the facing was also ignored. It is by this method of eliminating all wiggle dress pieces that I believe the sizing worked on this one but not the other – or as I like to put it someone in the butterick factory needs to be paying more attention. The two styles are two different sizes and nothing will convince me otherwise.

This dress was made out of a cotton voile with a blue and green floral print and some flocking (which is hard to see in photos). I saw the material (on sale as usual) for about $5 a meter at spotlight and fell in love with the blue and green colouring straight away. It was on a tall bold (150cm) and there was very minimal left (I think about 1.5-2m) but that didn’t stop me I bought it up and coveted the ideas of what outfit it could be turned into. I knew I needed a pattern that was sweet and feminine and not to fancy in its details (least it detract from the gorgeous floral), but it also had to work with such minimal yardage as I had.

Enter Butterick 6582, which I had bought originally for the wiggle dress on the front in black (so sexy). The full skirted version I noticed used deceptively low yardage and made up for it with some bias cutting in the skirt (I know that sounds odd as Bias cutting normally results in skads of unusable off-cuts but this pattern does not do that as the bias is only slight). It was everything I wanted it to be light, floaty, spring like, with enough detail in the cross front to be interesting but not so much as to be detracting. It answered all the feminine callings that my normally quite masculine brain had dreamt up for this floral. I immediately set to work.




The dress came together relatively easily considering the changes that I had made to it (creating the full cross front) and truth be told the waist did end up a little tighter for the extra bulk but not enough to be a problem and totally worth it to have the full cross front. I lined it in a light white poplin that I had lying around (75m of it lying around to be exact) and hand sewed the waist shut to hide all the internal seams.

I don’t think I did a great job with the zip but I blame that on the fact that I don’t normally use non invisible zips and I don’t think it made to much difference anyway.

When finished it somehow still looked unfinished, it needed a belt. But I felt that the traditional belt as per the pattern picture would be just a bit too much for this and decided on using left over green poplin to create a thin tie belt to cover the waist seam and give more of a waspie waste illusion.

I think all in all this is one of my favourite finished projects – I even wore it to a friends wedding about a year after it was made. It is still beautiful and waiting around for me to lose about 10kg and fit back into it.

The Boxy Dress

Hef has already told you about her version of the boxy dress here. Well this is my version, technically my post should have been first since I made mine first but, you can’t have everything.

This dress was from a Butterick reproduction pattern 4792. When I first started sewing I purchased it along with a whole bunch of other Butterick reproduction patterns when spotlight was having a half price sale. I liked it because it was retro 50’s, which was the era I was concentrating on, and also really liked the backwards halter of the top. In the drawing it looked like it may be a challenge, but it was also something different, something that made this dress unique to all the other reproduction dresses.

Admittedly this was when I had first started sewing and I didn’t realise the world of actual vintage patterns was waiting for me on etsy, or that there were other patterns out there which would suit me better, but more on that later.

I purchased some awesome orange floral cotton. The orange on it was very vibrant and so I thought it would make a great summer dress. Unfortunately the white of the cotton was not as opaque as I would have liked so I decided to line the dress in white cotton, so as to not have the orange showing through from the self lining the pattern asked for.

To do that I had to slice the bodice pieces which are designed to fold over and line themselves. Although it was a small change it added to the challenge of this dress for a very new sewer and I was amazed when I was able to do it and it all turned out right.

I had seen this dress made up before, and it looked boxy but I thought that was perhaps just how it had turned out that time. Unfortunately it was not just that girl, on my frame it did not hold any shape, and so it was dubbed the box dress. The only shape I could get out of it was if I pulled the belt quite tight, which makes it slightly less boxy but still not the beautiful nipped waist look of the drawing.

I like the skirt part on it. You can lift it all the way up and it looks like bat wings. It is soooo large! (you will see from the photos of me I like to hold my skirt up and show how large they are, hef likens it to a peacock). I think it’s supposed to have less, or at least is supposed to be gathered in specific spots, but I didn’t do that. I gathered all the way round and it seemed to be ok, like I said I was very new to sewing at this point.

I still like it, but the backwards halter top seems to make my shoulders look really prominent and it does not pull in enough for a waist. I mean I don’t have a waist anyway.

When we were doing the photos for this blog I accidently put it around the wrong way and wow it look sooo much better! The boobs were put into the back which was the only issue, that and well I was wearing a dress backwards. I’m tempted to make it that way for good, but to do that I’d have to do something with the boobs. Take a look at the pictures and let me know your thoughts/ideas. Would turning it backwards permanently make it work or do you have other suggestions on how to save this box dress.

The "Perfect" Dress - a cautionary tale

Let me start this post by telling you all that I can never make anything perfect, I just can't do it. Be it a wonky hem, a rushed dart, stitching escaping the ditch it does not matter what the issue is there will always be one. Mostly this comes down to the fact that I rush most things, even the things I make a conscious effort not to rush somehow end up finished in a week of nights at most with some issue, or slip up for me to focus on at later dates thinking if I just... but being to lazy to re-do.

Enter Buttericks retro reprint 6582. To start with I made this in the full skirt version, which I will post about later once I have pics of me actually in the dress, sufficed to say it has some issues but generally I was happy with the outcome of the size 10 full skirt version, the wonky hem I can ignore the arm holes made for barbie thin arms I can handle, it is one of my favourite works. But this is supposed to be about the wiggle version right there on the front in the black.

Just look at it, doesn't it scream sex kitten? Is it not the hottest little number you have ever seen? The sexy curves the modest yet alluring neckline, surely the perfect pattern. And look at the fabric I found. A beautiful cotton sateen, with an abstract rose pattern in fuchsia and gray and cream. Modern and Retro all in one and sexily perfect for my perfectly sexy pattern.

The problems started at get go. I didn't have enough material to cut it with the stretch and so I cut it against the stretch. No biggie. It fit Just.

Then I realised that I had cut a piece the wrong way - so I re-cut it out of my minimal scraps only to realise then that I was an idiot because it was already cut the right way. Then I located another piece that was cut the wrong way and I had nothing left to cut it from but hey it was a facing piece so again no biggy.

I really took my time on it - taking a week of nights to finish a pattern that has only limited pieces and I would normally run together in a couple of hours. I took extra care that my double ended darts started and finished symmetrically, I painstakingly lined up and re-lined up my zip, I read and re-read the kick pleat instructions until I got it all just perfect. And it is - you can see it here on Mavis, this dress is everything it promised, sexy but classy, slinky but elegant. Beautiful.

Want to know why it is on Mavis, well because the bastard is at least 2 sizes to small for me!!!!! So maybe I didn't measure myself first up, generally I would accept a slip up like this to be my own fault, I obviously made the wrong size. Except remember above where I said I had made the other version, the full skirted version, in the same size. Remember how I said it fits me fine. Well the very same pattern has a wiggle dress that is two sizes smaller than the skirted dress. They share only one piece, and due to changes I made on the full skirt I didn't even use that piece the first time (the small triangle-ish piece that makes the false cross-over effect, on the full skirt I made it a proper cross-over).

So I made changes to the full skirt - but those changes should have made it tighter not looser!!! How could Butterick, a normally reputable company make such an error, just to mess with the heads of impatient people like me who assume that they put to much ease into all there patterns? For the record I measure up to a 14 or 16 bust on most modern patterns but all that measurement is out front, my back is quite small. I usually make a 10 or 12 and that fits fine, but this one I made a 10 and should have made a 14 or 16, and it isn't even the bust that is the biggest problem. It is the hips, that sexy curve is not so curvy on the real thing, infact it is pretty straight. Even if I had of cut with the stretch there would still not be enough butter to grease me into this dress.

The lesson I learnt - www.patternreview.com, learn it, live it, love it. Had I but read some of the reviews available on this site, I would have known the inherent problems with Butterick 6582 and all of this angst could have been avoided.

To those with the discerning eye yes I have not hemmed the dress yet - despite it being finished for months. It is too perfect to forget so I have been hunting for the person who will fit this perfect dress, so that they may enjoy it's wonders. That does mean however that it will need to be hemmed to them and unfortunately not me.

Some Patterns feel obligitory

One of the things that has become very apparent since I started working with retro and vintage patterns is that some designs, no matter how flawed, seem to be obligatory to make. For example Butterick 4790 also known as the “walk away dress”, or as we have dubbed it the “deceptively evil dress from hell”, and this one Butterick 4792 or what we call the “boxy dress”.

Not quite as evil as it’s spawn of Satan cousin the walk away dress, the boxy dress has a way of unflattering even the most flattering figures. Perhaps it is just that the fit is hard to get right but in all bar one of its inceptions that I have seen on my troll through sewing blogs and review websites, every case makes it’s wearer look like they have a box sitting on their hips.

This is me in my version, a black and white masterpiece. Originally it was meant to be all in the spots but apparently the skirt requires much more material than I had anticipated – the outcome was using the white material as the top and the spots as the skirt, though I think I like it like this.

On the top of the list about the positives of this pattern is that the gathering of the skirt, which leaves flat sections across the front and back and side seams allows for a very elegant flow, the downside, if you aren’t be anally retentive about reading the pattern directions it is very easy to miss that you are meant to leave these sections ungathered. The pattern also comes with a sew in crinoline type thing but I omitted that not wanting to have to sit on tulle for the benefit of a few centimetres of lift.

On top of the long list of negatives is the top half. Sure it looks in the drawing like it should be a very interesting feature piece, with its awesome reverse halter look. It seems to be flirty, unique and by instructions simple enough for the most basic seamstress to complete with ease. Realistically, here is the picture now available on the butterick site, as you can see even a professional seamstress (as I assume the people who do the outfits for these shots are) can’t manage to get any bust/waist definition in there.

Now Ange made her version first, and she warned me, “it’s very boxy” she said. Now given that I have a hefty 8 inch difference between bust and waist I thought it would be impossible to cause me to lose bust definition, surely that was just crazy talk.

So I set forth and created this pattern, and overall I must say I was pleased with the result. There are few errors (really only one and you can’t see it in the picture anyway – its a puckered gather in the skirt I did not notice until AFTER I had hand stitched the entire lining in place and I was NOT going to unpick for one teensy almost invisible pucker), and the white top, spotty bottom with a red belt I think looks nice and classic – but as the photo proves, I too look boxy in this style.

Having now written this post though I am consumed with an idea, I wonder if it would work better in a stretch fabric? I guess I could always find out after my next Cabramatta excursion... so long as I go before August.

Tune in soon as I will force Ange to write a long expose on the evils lurking behind the “super easy” walk away dress.... that is once she finishes it, yeah a project over 12 mths in the making.