Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Apron Dress (The three hour "ten minute" dress)



Sewed this dress for Talia. I've had it in mind for a while. Another Target T-shirt top (must remember to learn how to "set-in sleeves" but a knit top is so much more comfy than woven anyway), cut off an inch under the arms, one yard of fabric sewn into a tube, hemmed, gathered and attached. Then I took a piece of fabric, hemmed it all around, gathered it a little at the top and attached it to a sash. Sewed the sash to the dress. Tie it in the back. Done! It should have taken ten minutes. Nope. Here were my mistakes:

1. I cut the skirt part of the fabric (eyeballed the correct length of course), hemmed it and sewed it into a tube AND GATHERED IT. I could tell right away that it would be "not spinny." I took the leftover fabric and created two panels. Ripped out the first seam, had to trim the entire skirt length an inch to match and repeated the whole process.

2. Ran out of thread while re-sewing the gathers. Had to rip that out and start again.

3. RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER! Sewed the shirt to the skirt inside out. Duh!

4. As always, "caught" some of the t-shirt fabric (creating a horizontal tuck) when attaching the skirt. Had to rip that out and fix it.

5. The skirt part in the back was bunching up above the bow when T moved around. Decided to sew the entire sash all the way around. This completely stretched out the knit fabric, looked ridiculous and did not cause the desired effect. Took it out, created belt loops to keep the sash in place. Of course the fabric is directional and one of the belt loops is upside down. I did not fix that.

6. Talia didn't like the dress, said it was too short (it is NOT) so I added a ruffle trim with embroidered hearts. I meant to use that in this project anyway but forgot.

7. T still hates the dress and I had to bribe her to wear it. I think she might like it better now. I guess I got some pictures and I can just save it to look at and caress because I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT.

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