Patience...I have none!

5:56 pm

dress 5

I am an impatient seamstress as well as a lazy one! When I was a teenager I would hop on a bus to town, buy a few metres of fabric from the market and whip up an outfit to wear the same night. I barely ever used a pattern, and honestly I didn't care too much if the garment fell apart the next day so long as it stayed together for the night out. I don't do that anymore, but I do sometimes often abandon all my sensible stitching plans for a quick fashion/sewing hit.These days my standards are highrer and I expect even my quick and dirty projects to last longer than one evening, but it is a part of my nature I'm not terribly keen on.

dress 2

This dress is a perfect example, when I should've been working on something more sensible like filling the gaps in my wardrobe with seperates, or making myself some much needed pyjamas, I instead fished this fabric out of the ironing pile and started cutting into it.
The fabric was bought in Abakhan for a quite stupidly low price. I thought it looked vagueley corporate, and Woody said it looked kind of "air liner", so yay I thought, "retro air stewardess dress , here I come!"

dress 4

I used my self drafted bodice, a self drafted circle skirt, and the sleeves from my favourite Maudella dress. (I have yet to draft my own sleeve...something else I should've been getting on with!).
The fabric is a very loose weave. I pondered underlining the whole dress to give it some stability, but decided it was probably going to end up too bulky for that, so just lined the bodice. The wrong decision! Although the bodice works well with lining, the circle skirt with such a loose weave is less successful. I left the dress hanging for two days before hemming, then I trimed the hem even while on the dummy, and it still hung unevenly. Sadly the weight of the fabric combined with the loose weave means that where the skirt hangs on the bias it stretches out making the hem uneven. If I'd underlined the skirt I think I might've not had this problem? Or maybe this is simply a case of wrong shape for this fabric? Probably both.

Despite all that though. I do actually really love this dress! I adore my self drafted bodice, it feels amazing to wear something that actually fits, even if it does look odd on the hanger and my back waist darts seem like they should never work for anyone. (They are so large I have to press them towards the side seams so they don't overlap the centre back zip!)

Think my next make needs to be more considered, less impatient.....

How about you? Are you a careful considerered seamstress, or a quick and dirty fashion hit type? Or maybe a bit of both?

Don't be shy, say hello!

9 comments

  1. Anonymous9:54 pm

    I think it looks lovely and, because it is the same both side, it looks like you deliberately have a shaped hem. I am down and dirty lots of the time, or if it becomes apparent that there is something fundamentally wrong with what I am trying to achieve, but I can just keep thrashing away at something forever if I love it and neeeed it to be perfect (until I wear it out and realise all its faults!)

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    1. I think perhaps we are sometimes too hard on ourselves. I always want things to be perfect, but they never are!

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  2. I love your dress and the print. I am so impressed with the self-drafting. It looks amazing on you. :)

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  3. I do like this but I'm distracted by your boots, you always have fantastic footwear!!

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    1. I do love my shoe collection! I think years of wearing just DM's when I was younger means that now I want to wear "All the shoes!"

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  4. What a fit on the bodice, perfect. I also thought the hem was a feature! It works well and gives a sort of mini handkerchief hem look. The outfit really suits you.

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    1. Thank you Mags, yes hankerchief hem! I will just pretend that was my intention!

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  5. Absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing...58eveningdress.

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