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Sunday, June 21, 2015

A Saved Dress

One of the assignments in my recent pattern making for knits class was to draft a princess line dress for interlock fabric.  As per the lesson, the dress was to have a V-neck, flared skirt and sleeves with a self-fabric band.

I discovered that the key to success for this dress was to pick good quality fabric or some type of fun fabric like some of my classmates did.  I, however, decided to try to save money and purchased a cheap, meaning poor quality, interlock fabric on sale.  (Honestly, I knew better but oh well.)  Although the pattern draft was correct, the fabric did not do the dress any justice.  The fabric has some weight to it so it pulls the dress down.  The fabric just hangs.  I can also tell that over time, this fabric will pill.  I like the color though.

I was going to give the dress away but decided after all of the time and energy I put into it to try to save it.



I did not think the sleeves were flattering on me ….


…so I cut 3 inches off the sleeves and did not use the self-fabric band.  I liked the dress much better with the shorter sleeve. 

We were also taught different methods of sewing with knits.  One of the methods was to stitch a seam using a sewing machine with a ball point or stretch needle.  When sewing knits with a sewing machine, you should avoid using a small stitch; otherwise, you can end up with a wavy seam.  I used a stitch length of 3.1. I then serged the edge with a 3-thread serger stitch.  Always experiment with test swatches to see what stitches work best for your fabric.  I also used the coverstitch for the hem.


I decided to keep the dress.  It's good enough to wear around the house or to run errands.  It's very comfortable.  But….no more cheap fabrics for me!

Happy sewing!


10 comments:

  1. So glad you saved it. Love the color and the fit is spot on!

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  2. Well done for saving it! It's a pity the quality of your fabric let you down because the shape and colour are so lovely on you :)

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    1. Thank you Carolyn. I do like the color and fit so I will get some use out of this dress until the day the fabric konks out.

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  3. Im glad you have kept this dress! It looks good on you. The fit is good and looks so comfy to wear :)x

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  4. I see that you sewed the seam on your SM and serged the raw edge, so there is space between the SM stitching and the serged edge. Usually I baste the seam with my SM and then serge on or right next to the SM stitching. Do you know if there are pros and cons to each method?

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    1. Both methods work just fine. The only plus with the space in between the sewing machine stitches and the serger stitches is if you feel you need to let it out at bit.

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  5. p.s. I too have a dress that needs its sleeves hacked....your dress looks great and very well sewn!

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    1. Thank you Kyle! Trimming those sleeves really made a big difference.

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