I first tried making Sew House Seven's Mississippi Ave Dress & Shirt, in the top length. I used a fabric that I've had around for a while, a silky bright green embossed poly. Man, was it a trial!! The pattern has a gorgeous picture of airy dresses on a line, and such great design features.Look at that centre panel - what a great feature. The waistline has an elastic casing all the way around, but stopping at either side of that front panel. In theory, this is a lovely dress.
On me, it is not. First off, I messed up the point of the "V" when I was attaching the bias binding at the neck. It's bumpy and messy -- I know I *could* unpick it and hand stitch it to fix that...but will I? Probably not, since when I put it on I realized that this style doesn't work for me. I look dumpy and disproportionate in it. I can't quite figure it out. I think I may fix the neck and give it to my sister, who will probably look fab in it, since she looks good in everything.
Here's how lovely it looks when it's not on me.
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| FRONT |
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| BACK - note the cute elastic casing |
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| closeup of shoulder tie feature; nice in theory! |
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| closeup of the casing & a better look at this lovely fabric |
So then I thought I'd try to get over the disappointment with another dress, a McCalls 7115 which I thought looked very 90's - and that was a good thing. I had the perfect ditsy print rayon (which I picked up during PR Weekend in Chicago) to match the feel of it.
Well. Again, it is really pretty, and looks fab on the hanger.
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| kimono sleeve |
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| wonderful added-in pockets |
BUT!! I even sewed all the lovely mauve shimmery buttons on lovingly, and when I tried it on.......yikes! I've reviewed it over at PR, with full gory details. The short form is: I looked like a babushka in it, and it was extremely unflattering.
I think I probably spent a good hour or two fiddling with it, trying to come up with ways to alter it to make it work. Nada. It does not work. It's oversized, the proportions are off, and this flowing, dropped waist style just does not suit me at all.
I was seduced by the appeal of the pattern cover, but didn't take into account my own figure. I'm going to chop it up a bit and refashion -- I'm not losing this wonderful fabric. Perhaps into a loose top, if I can finagle that.
Anyhow, after two fails it feels kind of daunting to get back on the horse and try again. My next project is another rayon dress, and I hope that the fabric doesn't cross me for a third time. Well, I'll only know if I try. Meanwhile, I've been taking a break from my garment sewing and spending quite a bit of time on embroidery. It's soothing to the smarting sewing pride after these two #sewingfails.
What about you? What do you do to recover from a disastrous make?
