A New Dress

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 I wanted a new dress. The last dress I made for myself was fraying at the seams. I think the cats ruined my one white blouse that goes with everything. (I didn't catch them in the act, but there is a series of holes in the back, about the distance of a cats claws. I'm really not happy about that.) So my options for what to wear on a Sunday were severely limited, and I wanted a new dress. Unfortunately, due to Steven's current job status, buying a new dress was not an option. Fortunately, I did have some fabric on hand that I bought several months ago (Wal-mart bargain barrel, 5yd bolt for $5) and I had a stock of patterns for clothing I had made in the past. So.... I decided to make myself one.

The pattern that I really wanted to use was one I made a dress from when I was in high school. I loved that dress and got a lot of use out of it before it wore out. Unfortunately, when I made that dress, I was about five sizes smaller than I am now. So I spend a day prewashing the fabric (to see if it would bleed or shrink) and trying to resize the pattern to make it big enough to fit me now. The next day I spent cutting out the pieces and starting to sew it together. I soon discovered my big mistake. When I resized the pattern and cut out the pieces, I hadn't taken into account that the fabric I was using was really stretchy! I ended up taking it in, and taking it in again. I came to realize how convenient it would be to have a dressmaker's dummy, when I stitched a seam, tried it on, figured out how much I would need to take it in, and then took it off, took the seams in and tried the dress on again to see if it fit yet. There was hardly a seam that I didn't have to sew at least twice! Anyway, three days later (of doing little else with whatever free time I had) I finally finished it and was able to wear it to church yesterday. I'm happy with how it turned out!

Comments

  1. Tom/TabithaFebruary 14, 2011 at 9:45 AM

    I like it! I remember the other dress, too. You are so talented.

    ReplyDelete
  2. KendraFebruary 14, 2011 at 6:53 PM

    CUTE!!! I have no patience for sewing but I love the feeling of completing something!!!! You look great!

    ReplyDelete

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