My Darling Ranges dress is done! I got tired of sewing in small spurts and feeling like I wasn't making any progress. So yesterday I decided as soon as I get home from work I'm not leaving my sewing room until this dress is finished. All was going well until I pricked my finger on the machine's needle, couldn't get the automatic buttonhole function to work (I spent a good 2 hours yelling at my machine with that one), and had to perform maintenance after I thought I'd totally broken it. Luckily, manual buttonholes aren't nearly as difficult as I assumed (and way neater!) and my Husky is doing fine. I finally finished at 1am.
I sound like I'm complaining, but I'm not. Some people get their thrills
from riding roller coasters or mountain climbing, I apparently get mine
from marathon sewing whilst secretly imagining that Tim Gunn is in my
sewing room yelling "Designers! You have 10 minutes. Make it work!".
This is probably the most challenging garment I've made so far and I learned a lot from it.
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| Excuse the wrinkled back collar, I was wearing a cardigan over it all day |
Modifications: Small bust adjustment, lengthened and raised front darts, added darts to the back, added gathers below shoulder seam, omitted sleeves, shortened hem, lined skirt, added tie-front collar. Whew!
The only thing I would change is the way I created the gathers at the shoulder. My slash and spread method created extra bulk around the bustline and wound up making my armholes just slightly too big for the sleeves to fit in. Well, they would fit but with no ease at the cap...which just looked really weird and didn't allow for much movement. Since I ran out of fabric I used the sleeve pieces to make bias tape.
I'd probably raise the neckline next time as well. I just barely got away with this one (the neck ties helped), and it's much lower than I'm used to. But it's fitted enough to bend over without flashing anyone so it really doesn't bother me. Just to be safe, I used a hidden safety pin to make the deep v a little more modest for work today.
This dress is so comfortable - fits me like a glove but still allows for plenty of room for movement and big lunches! I actually had a group of nurses standing around me at work today feeling my dress's fabric, oohing and ahhing over how soft it is. I'll definitely be buying more voile like this, it's amazing!
Me-Made-May is coming up next week and I'm a little panicky. I need to be sewing, but my house is way overdue for a Spring cleaning! It's getting to me. So I'm going to tackle that for the next couple of days and then start something new. Don't worry, I won't kill your blog feed with tons of outfit posts. I'll just be posting once a week with pictures of what I wore. Who else is in?Labels: darling ranges, dress, finished projects, sewing
