The fruits of my sewcation - #3 Summerdress

From KnipMode January 2018

This is the last one of my makes I sewed way back in the beginning of May.

The fabric I used has been in my stash for quite some time. It was part of a fabric surprisebox and altough I liked the fabric from the beginning, I didn’t have plans for it for a long time. But when I started to think about spring- and summersewing earlier this year, this fabric popped up in my head more than once. So the search for a pattern started. I knew I wanted to make an easy dress  and I wanted to use the side of the fabric on which the pattern gets darker, as a feature. I found a pattern that seemed to check all the boxes and decided to place the darker pattern of the fabric at the bottom of the dress. For a few moments I thought of placing it at the waist but boy, am I glad I decided against that!

I fiddled with the pattern a bit to get it to my liking (sleeves a bit wider, shorter and more bended, added a bust-dart, widened the waist, took out some fullness of the skirt. And obviously I skipped the middle part which in the original design is used for colourblocking (top and bottom black, middle part frog-green). I also left out the bows and made small tie-belt instead.

When putting it all together it seemed to work well but the sleeves were not behaving the way they should. The hems of these grown-on sleeves tend to pull up on top of your arm. It wasn’t that bad before I hemmed the sleeves, but after I did it looked horrendous. Really awful. No way I would wear it like that. So what to do?  I remember fiddling with it a bit more but with no succes and at a certain point I was so fed up that I wanted to cut of the bodice and use only the skirt. But in the back of my head there was this little voice saying “just let it rest for now and come back tomorrow”.  So I put down my scissors and left the sewingroom. The next day I picked up the dress again and had a light-bulb moment: why not put some elastic on the inside of the sleeve-hem where it points up and tame it that way?  It was worth the try, so I did. And it worked. I must honestly say that if I could trade it for a nice smooth hem, I would. But this is the next best thing and at least I’m happy I was able to save the dress. With thanks to that little voice in my head telling me not to give up yet.

It's still hot here in the Netherlands. Well, at least to my standard it is. In the beginning of my summer-holiday I managed to sew a dress and skirt (which I both think turned out great and I'll wite about them in my next blogposts) but my plans for sewing a lot during the holiday remained just that: plans. When the weather cools down again the holiday will be over and I think by then it will be time to face the fact that summersewing is over as well. Not that I mind. I lóve to sew for fall and winter.  
So maybe I should use this hot weather to do some planning for the coming, cooler seasons. That should be doable right? And fun. With a cool drink at hand, of course  ;-) 

Talk to you next time and stay safe.

Lilian