Tuesday, November 2, 2010

A New Knit Dress


My good friend Mary took me to this great fabric store near her home called A Fabric Place. I don't think they have a web site. They have all kinds of beautiful fabrics from silks and wools that I never see at my chain fabric stores. While I was there I only bought one piece of fabric. It was this lovely slinky jersey knit. I got it with thoughts of making this dress from Butterick 5484. The pattern has three views with the only changes being the length. There is a short top length, a tunic length and a below the knee dress. The dress has a cross over top that passes through a buckle. I had a bit of a challenge finding the right kind of buckle, but I found one in the perfect color at Hancock Fabric.

The dress is a pretty easy and quick project to sew. There are only two pattern pieces. I have made crossover tops before and I always get confused about which seam to sew first and how to make the crossover in the front. I usually do it wrong at least one time before I get it right. This dress was no exception. I had to take one seam out because I sewed the wrong seam before putting the buckle on. The dress was easy to sew but the fabric was very soft and slinky so that made it trickier to sew. Because the fabric was so thin and stretchy it wanted to get sucked down into the throat plate. This happened several times during construction but I was able to catch it before it made a hole in the fabric. Also I think because of how stretchy the fabric was it was quite large under the arms but it was easy to take in before I sewed the hem on the sleeves.

The fabric is very clingy so it shows every figure flaw. I decided I need to wear one of those suck it in slips with this dress. I do like the finished dress though and I think I will make another in the tunic length. But I will probably use a sturdier knit next time.

I am not really very good at taking pictures and I have this photographic disorder. It manifest itself when a camera flash goes off I get a weird expression on my face. It happens nearly every time anyone takes my picture. So I decided to cut my head off in this picture to take care of that problem. I would prefer to sew than spending all afternoon taking pictures of myself. Even if I spent all day there is no guarantee that any of the pictures would have a decent expression on my face.

3 comments:

  1. Great dress! The blue is beautiful. You did a wonderful job. Where can I get one of those suck it in slips? LOL!
    Take care,
    Angela

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  2. Thank you so much for stopping by Jeremiah 29:11 and leaving such a sweet comment. I love visiting you, too, to see all your latest creations!!! :)

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