3 patterns…1 dress

Greetings from Wolfenbüttel in Germany!!

We arrived here late last night after a mammoth 13 hour journey for a concert we are playing in the Lessing Theatre tonight which happens to be right next door to the hotel we’re in so I have a few hours to kill and thought a blog might be in order!

I don’t know if you remember but I’ve been making a dress for my sister as she had a friend’s wedding to go to… in the Maldives (yes, I know – definitely not jealous are we?!) When Nicky (that’s my sister) said she had nothing to wear I jumped straight into sewer mode and next thing we were looking at maxi dress patterns online for her. The one she choose (first) was this:

Burda Printed Maxi-Dress 05/2013 #123

Oh yes, very pretty but after printing the PDF, sticking it together and reading through the “instructions” I started to feel the dread of ‘I think I’ve bitten off WAY more than I can chew’ setting in. Haven’t we all been there? 😉 

This is where I learnt lesson 1: Burda instructions are AGHHHH, WAAAAH really really frustrating – in this case they made me actually angry and I don’t really get angry so that’s quite impressive! My brilliant mum gave me a white bedsheet to make a muslin out of so I didn’t ruin any fabric trying out this beast of a dress and thank goodness she did otherwise it would have been a complete disaster and waste of money and fabric. The pattern said it was for an adventurous beginner which is exactly where I saw myself so the fact it beat me is rather disappointing but after finding lots of reviews of bloggers saying they gave up on this dress I realised it was the only way forward so I threw the towel in and went back to Nicky in desperation to find another suitable pattern!

I sent her a list of slightly similar styles – sadly I couldn’t find anything exactly the same but we settled on this dress:

The Exquisite Maxi Dress by Seamstress From Venus on Craftsy.com I really like this dress and I was all for supporting an indie pattern maker but I also struggled with this one. Firstly, totally my fault- the width of the fabric we had chosen was too narrow to cut the skirt pattern from (which of course I realised after I had printed and pasted my PDF pattern-oops) but then, not my fault, I realised my favourite part of the picture, the waistband, wasn’t actually in the pattern… so I was left a bit perplexed as what to do next and time was running out!

The other dress style we both like was this youtube tutorial:

And at least being able to see what was going on felt like it might lead me to a finished dress!

So I used all three patterns!! I brought back in the Burda design to use the skirt template as it fit the fabric and used the directions and idea of attaching elastic to the waistband with the Craftsy one. So I was left without a top as I really wanted there to be contrast straps and waistband so I used the video tutorial to cut out the two triangles for the top and how to attach them to the waistband and then basically made up the rest!

BTW this is my folks house – I was housesitting at the time!

When Nicky arrived for the fitting all I needed to do was add the zip… or so I thought.

That night Nix and I were up to 1am adding darts on the chest pieces and on the top of the skirt, expanding the waistband (I had made it for a stick insect it turns out!) lots of frantic unpicking and some tacks here and there keep the straps in place!

Then I finished with sewing on an invisible zip which at 1am was fine until we realised it was totally off center!! Aghhh! Luckily Nicky has lovely long hair to cover it up so we decided it was ‘fine’ and went to bed! The thing I am most annoyed with is I had to overlap the front pieces in the end as otherwise it was way too revealing!

It is fine though, I’m actually really happy with this dress and think it looks so good on Nicky!

I definitely learnt some things making this dress!

1. I should fully read the instructions and explore blog posts about patterns before buying and printing them.
2. I should check the size of fabric before printing and sticking together PDF patterns
3. I probably wasn’t meant to topstitch on the straps to the top pieces like I did – I’m sure there is a better way of putting right sides together and pressing them out – naughty Gabby! Sewists- how would you have done it? I’d love to know for next time!
4. I should have started making this much earlier in the day so I wasn’t up to 1am making silly mistakes
5. I really should have checked the zip was in the center before sewing in… such a school boy error!

Well, it’s all a learning curve isn’t it!

Anyway…Here Nicky is in the dress in the freakin’ Maldives!!

So what do you think? Was it a total disaster or did I just about get a way with it? 

Have you ever had to make clothes for someone else that caused much frustration and how do you deal with it?

What do you do when a pattern or instructions makes no sense to you? 

I’d love to hear from you on this!

Off to play some music now and hopefully finish knitting my snood so I can wear it- it’s mighty chilly here! I do recommend knitting to anyone in a band or who does a lot of travelling – I got so much done in that 13 hour drive yesterday (don’t worry I wasn’t driving at the same time!) and I love that I can still be creative throughout soundchecks, waiting around etc!

Yours with bloggy love,