It’s What I’d Call a Sleeve Situation – Amy Week 4

This week, other than finishing the jacket, I sewed a simple dress. Or, what I thought was a simple dress. Well, what should have been a simple dress? ( Butterick Fast & Easy 5317 – um… not so fast and easy after all.) I thought it was going to be so simple that I procrastinated all week and weekend and finally got to business on Monday late afternoon. I just thought for sure I could whip it up in no time. Boy was I wrong!

Butterick 5317

The dress was actually simple, in theory. It only had six pieces – bodice front and back – and a front and back for the bodice lining, and a skirt front and back. Each piece had some pleating, but otherwise wasn’t too difficult. I chose to use the pattern option that had cap sleeves.

My first misadventure was that I didn’t have a fabric pen that marked the fabric well enough so I could see the dots and pleat lines. Pencil didn’t write well on the thread-heavy patterned fabric, and my white chalk seemed invisible. A quick trip to the fabric store was all I needed to buy a “disappearing marker” in pink (and purple, blue and green). Funny thing about those disappearing inks – they disappear – really quickly. By the time I transferred all the marks for each piece, they’d faded and I couldn’t find them. I resorted to marking and pinning as I went.

The skirt pleats didn’t go so well, there was a bit of gap between them but I moved on… it was supposed to be simple for goodness sakes! Next was the bodice, then I added the sleeves. Out of pure haste and the frustration with the disappearing marker – literally – I just eyeballed the sleeves – guessing where to attach them to the shoulders of the bodice piece. Um… lesson learned – NEVER EYEBALL WHEN SEWING. After I finished the dress – all except the zipper  - I tried it on. One sleeve was ridiculous and clearly sewn askew from the shoulder. Oops. I gave up for the night – throwing in the towel on finishing by reveal day. (I knew I could wear my finished jacket and skirt from the week before instead.)

Amy's Simple Sleeveless Dress

I ended the evening ripping apart seams, removing the sleeves and preparing to start again. I finally got back to it on Thursday evening. I fixed all the skirt pleats and the bodice where the sleeves were supposed to attach. I just left off the sleeves and convinced myself that sleeveless is more hip anyway.

As I was nearing completion, Clara tried it on. (Clara the dress form.) It was too small in the bodice area. Although I wasn’t sure how that happened, I decided to give up once again and just have Mark pin me in the dress, as best as possible, just for the photo and blog, and move on.

After I tried on the dress, I decided it might work after all. Instead of messing with a zipper, I just sewed up the seam entirely – the dress still fit over my head. Mark pinned the hem, I sewed it, and the dress was DONE! A few days late, but still worth the effort.

As I’m writing this, it just occurred to me that since the bodice didn’t fit Clara – but fit me… Clara must be a bit more well-endowed than me, huh?

Anyway… the dress turned out okay. The finishing is a bit… or a lot… sloppy. I need to stop sewing when I’m in a hurry to finish – it is a detriment to the final look!

Next week is an easy skirt (I hope) and a Cynthia Rowley top. A combo outfit!

Until then…

Amy

Advertisement

---