Today may mark the first unsuccessful project since I embarked on my dressmaking frenzy. I look at this summer dress which I decided to make for our trip to St Lucia in just a few weeks, and I keep finding stuff that’s wrong with it. For a start, the zipper needs to be unpicked – the stitching is irregular and ugly (not least because my old Singer is stitching more and more loosely without any of my attempts to fix that succeeding). But I appear to have also cocked-up on the fitting of the pattern altogether. I adjusted the top but neglected to adjust the waist consequently, so did a quick-and-messy job of adjusting towards the end, apparently removing a little too much waist, which means that, well, it just doesn’t fit. So on top of redoing the zipper, I will also have to redo it with less seam allowance to try to make up for the crap fitting work. Ugh.
And there is also the fabric – all in all, I thought the gigantic flowers would work wonders for a tropical look (it reminded me of an old French Connection summer dress I once had), but I think I picked a fabric that’s actually too thick for the job, meaning that the beautiful flowy effect I wanted just isn’t quite there. In short, this just isn’t a sexy summer dress. Yaarrh.
Now I’m wondering – should I leave this one to the side for a while and come back to it later with a view to rescuing it or, more realistically, will it be parked with a couple of other half-hearted projects on a shelf, while I excitedly start on the next one? I do have this great little evening number to work on, in grey satin…
I learn from this frustrating episode that I need a new sewing machine (I have my eye on one — little electronic beauty; boy they have evolved since 1971…), that pattern fitting needs more time than I cared to give it so far, and that it’s best to steer away from fabrics that could just as well be used for curtains…!
