A Learning Experience...

Over the weekend, I worked a lot on my sewing. 

Last week, I made a practice dress out of muslin that I bought a while ago from JoAnn's (back when we still lived in Houston). I had also bought a whole bunch of patterns when they were on sale and one of them was Simplicity Pattern No. 1652. It's part of their Amazing Fit collection, an A-line dress with a scoop neck, full back, & slightly gathered skirt with in seam pockets. You can make the dress to have cap sleeves or short sleeves, and you can even make a peek-a-boo back cut-out if you want.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got some fabric on sale from Hancock's here in town and I thought it would make a really pretty dress. This is the first dress I've ever really attempted so I decided to practice the pattern out in the muslin fabric first. 

Let me just tell you that this has been a learning experience. 

First I cut out the pattern in the size I thought I needed based on my measurements and the back of the pattern. When I got it all sewn together, it fit pretty nicely around my waist, but the top was too big. I put the dress on my dress form that has roughly the same measurements as I do, and started pinning it to where it would fit.

First of all, the back of the dress was too loose at the top so I pinned the extra fabric to where it was as tight as I wanted and marked it with a washable fabric pen. After I finished marking it on the muslin, I laid it out as flat as I could and transferred the marks to the pattern. 

Next I ripped out the threads where I needed to take the back in and sewed it back where I had the marks and then tried it on again. The top of the dress still didn't fit. It was too long in the front so I pulled up the shoulders a little bit and then pinned them to where the dress fell where it was supposed to and did the same process of transferring the marks to the pattern. 

Then was time to sew on the sleeves. They fit pretty nicely once I was done, so I didn't change them at all...until later.

I decided to make another practice run at the bodice of the dress since I had now altered the pattern pieces and I am glad I did!

After looking at the marks I had made on the pattern pieces, I changed them up a little bit. At first, I had just marked the patterns where I had put the new seams on the tester, but to make things easier for myself, I decided to cut out the size that most closely matched the original patterns. 

On the top around the neckline, my marks were closest to size 8, so I decided to start there. Since I didn't take in anything around the waist, I knew that it needed to go from size 8 at the top to size 14 at the waistline. The best way for me to do it was to go from size 8 at the neck and shoulders to a size 12 underneath the armpits and to a size 14 at the bottom. So I drew new lines on the patterns connecting them all together and then cut out the new pattern!

The skirt on the dress fit just fine for me, so I didn't make any changes to that part. 

I made another practice run out of an old fitted sheet that we don't use anymore...and in the end I turned it into a shirt by shortening the skirt so it's more of a peplum type top. 

The new bodice fit pretty well, except for the sleeves...they were way to tight. I had a heck of a time trying to get those stupid sleeves to fit (and they still don't...still too tight but it is wearable). I think I cut out about 10 different sleeves. 

I ended up cutting the sleeve pattern up and then adding more to it to add more wearing ease following a method that I learned from a book I bought a while back that talks about normal fit issues when using a pattern and how to change them up.

Anyway, after all was said and done, that's what I ended up with. I finally made it fit decently, and then I decided not to use that pattern with the original material I bought. LOL!

I had gone back to the fabric store over the weekend and they had all the patterns on sale for $1.99 so I got to looking at them, and I started talking to a lady there that was also looking at patterns, and I told her I was trying to make my first dress, but I was unsure that the pattern I bought would work with the material I had.

I am afraid that if I try this dress with the gathered skirt with the material I bought (which is 100% cotton duck cloth) that it wouldn't work, and I think she agreed with me. She said that the softer the fabric, the smoother it will lay and the duck cloth isn't very soft.

I think I'll have to buy a softer and flow-ier material for that one. I also bought a bunch of new patterns, and one is a dress that I think may work with my material.

It's Simplicity Pattern No. 2174.  I started cutting out the pattern pieces last night (I traced them onto tissue paper first so I wouldn't screw up the original after the lady I met told me that's what she does and it made sense to me). She told me that all the Simplicity patterns are generally about the same size, so I'm assuming that this dress will fit me like the tester I made, so I marked up the patterns the same way I did for the other one and I'm just hoping that it will work.

We shall see!