I recently got my hands on some post world war two utility fabric. A four metre length of Dayella made by Viyella. Dayella was a wool and cotton blend fabric made with a higher cotton content than Viyella and therefore more hardwearing and ideal for childrens wear. I however wanted to make a dress for me, with it.
This was going to be my "perfect" fitted dress for Christmas. I happily stitched away at the bodice in between school concerts and nativities. Everything was going perfectly.
I had used my basic bodice pattern, and since I know how perfectly that fits me I had no need to try on the bodice. I put in the sleeves, and moved on to adding the skirt, that is when I realised something was horribly wrong! I had cut out the pattern the morning after a sleepless night, and while I was feeling poorly, and I had not added the seam allowance to my bodice pieces! Yes, I do have my bodice pieces labelled and underlined reminding me to add seam allowance, but still I had made that mistake.
Of course, this meant the bodice was not going to fit me at all. I would have cried, but I couldn't. I was so cross with myself I just stomped around until I was calm enough to try and rescue it.
After a lot of head scratching and some maths (totally not my strong point), I decided that I could take out the sleeves, unpick the shoulder seams and re do them with only a 5mm seam allowance, and then add panels under each arm.
I must've got the maths right because the skirt then fitted onto the bodice. The resulting dress is ok, but far far from great, which is such a shame because it is such beautiful soft fabric that I will probably never find again.
I did wear the dress for Christmas day, but to cheer myself up and try to rescue my outfit I added some iron on appliques to a plain yellow cardigan.
Hard to be too cross with little birds on your cardigan.
