hey, she can (kinda) sew

Finally, here is my first successful dress (I’ve attempted before, but that didn’t get too far). Photo taken in my sister’s room, which we painted this week. Did the trim today, so it’s still drying.


(very difficult to get a decent photo of this, on my own anyway. looks better, and slimmer, in person.)

Pattern is Butterick 4443, view C (the yellow) without the bow, obviously. Size 14. Fabric was cotton/linen blend from Fabricland for $5 a metre! Quite a nice fabric.

The pattern was…well, challenging for me, queen of skirts and bags. I liked the princess shaping rather than darts, and once I figured out where to clip, they were easy to put together. I didn’t understitch the lining, which was good, because I ran out of thread…not till after I finished, but then there were alterations to be made.

The pattern really was fairly straightforward, though. The skirt is a really nice shape. I bought this pattern awhile back, so I’d gotten the 8-14 size – I made the 14, but it’s a bit snug in the waist despite reducing the seam allowances on the sides to less than 3/8″. Wearable, though.

Once I finished slip-stitching in the bodice lining (very tedious), I put it on, zipped it up, and….it was too big in the bodice. The back was gaping madly. So I had to make some modifications:

Two back darts.

Plus, I had to go and wreck my nice lined bodice by taking it in at the shoulder – with a different colour thread, too! Ah, well. I wore it out to SnB on Wednesday and got quite a few compliments.

And since the sewing bug’s got me, I finished another dress today! Okay, it’s not totally totally done, but it will be tomorrow. I even cut yet another dress tonight, and it should be fairly easy to sew up tomorrow.

Quick knitting update: Unfortunately, I had to rip what I’d done of the Blueberry Greek Pullover that I showed the other day! I went to count the stitches to figure out how many more increases to do, and realized I’d just cast on the wrong number of stitches. Not the smaller size or anything, just kind of a random number inbetween. I think I’m finally, finally back on track.


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8 responses to “hey, she can (kinda) sew”

  1. Leigh Avatar

    I’ve been surfing the Spinning Wheel and found you by clicking “previous”. Congratulations on your sewing project. Very clever to put the darts in the back like that. And your knitting is gorgeous!

  2. Julia Avatar

    It looks great! (So does your sister’s room.) This is inspiring me to get back into sewing. I’ve done some quilting – all straight lines – but all this talk of princess seams and lining – really intriguing! You look just lovely.

  3. Erica B. Avatar

    Congrats on your dress. Fantastic job!

  4. Silvia Avatar

    Looks great! Congrats on taking the sewing plunge. I’ve found that measuring the pattern before cutting gives me a much better idea of fit than the measurement chart on the pattern. I also use the tips in Sewing Shortcuts http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806975644/sr=1-2/qid=1155513457/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-4695091-9289517?ie=UTF8&s=books all the time. Sewing directions in the pattern aren’t always the best.

    I’ll be looking for dress #2!

  5. lisa Avatar

    Laura the dress is beautiful. I so envy your sewing talent.

  6. Susan Avatar

    First dress, wow. I had to throw my first one away. And my second, and my third I wore once maybe. Well, you get it. Good for you. I have a tip, (please don’t mind–just trying to be helpful) you can fix the shoulder seam by sewing just the outside seam, then folding the inside seam allowance in and hand stitching the edges together. You might have to rip back a ways to get the two tubes open enough to sew just one side, but you can topstitch back over that.

  7. Macoco Avatar

    Congratulations on your first dress! The dress looks great, and the fabric is very pretty.

  8. Gina Avatar

    I think the dress looks great. Good for you!

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