Sew Gorgeous; good old fashioned fun - sewing workshops and parties

Tuesday 28 May 2013

The sewing disaster.....



Have you ever made a mistake when sewing? Have you ever made two? What about when every thing you touch goes wrong? That’s the story of this dress.




It started out like most relationships, we were so in tune, I was blinded by love - Thick pink stripes! A square neckline! Oh be still my beating heart. But somewhere along the line it went so terribly, terribly bad. 

Separately the bodice and skirt were perfect if a little on the big side. I fitted and refitted and pinned and measured and confidently took in my seams and without a refit and I overlocked the seam allowances… mistake number one. Well, actually mistake number two as while I was fitting the pins holding the bodice together at the back had made a secretive and hasty escape, so my ‘needs to come in 2 INCHES’ (how was that not my first warning flag?) was actually ‘needs to come in 1 inch as the back’s not pinned together!’
So, uh huh, the bodice is now too tight… well that’s not the end of the world, I can always make a super small seam for the zip – crisis averted, now let me line up my darts on the skirt to the bodice and stitch that sucker closed. Oh wait, I lined up the centre dart with a side dart…

wonky skirt

After all of this I STILL had high hopes for me in this dress, I could just see myself in it already, dancing, romancing, taking Brisbane by storm! I won’t lie, I was feeling rather frustrated but thought I could still salvage that skirt with a bit of unpicking and repositioning. But you know there’s more coming right? As I was using the super quick (or is that super lazy?) way of unpicking – running the unpicker down the seam between the two pieces of fabric instead of upicking from the wrong side of the fabric – and yip, you guessed it, I cut a hole in the fabric.
The only thing that DID go right...a gorgeous ungathered cap sleeve
And so finally it became clear to me, we were over, before we had really even begun. I don’t like to quit, and I always tell my students not to give up as sometimes a project that’s annoying or looking ugly really comes together in the last couple of seams and can become a favourite item of clothing but its just not going to happen for me and this dress….

The moral of the story? No matter how great at sewing you (think you) are, don’t forget to take your time and  treat every project (no matter how easy you might think it will be) with the attention they all need to become great pieces – a lovely item of clothing isn’t whipped up in an hour.

I loved this fabric – does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do with the pieces of this dress?

18 comments:

  1. Oh no!! It wouldve been lovely. I had the same thing happen to me about a week ago...it was insane how many things just kept going wrong that i ended up throwing it across the room and threw myself into a bubble bath.
    Could you cut the skirt and make it into a mini skirt, and make a matching headscarf? You could get a little clutch out of it too!! Matchy matchy awesomeness :)

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    1. Thanks Amber - Maybe I could use this as a towel once I get out of the bubble bath? ;)

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  2. Good to know that even professionals can make mistakes! Makes us beginners feel better!

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    1. My pain is your gain Adele! I thought I'd post about it as its easy to look at beautiful things on blogs and wonder if you're the only one that makes mistakes... no matter how confident you are, sometimes things still happen :)

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  3. OH! What a dissapointment, and yes, I have projects that go from bad to worse. I think you could at least salvage a skirt out of that fabric. It is a lot of fun. ~Major Moma

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    1. I'm glad to hear I'm not alone out there with projects that take on a (evil) mind of their own!

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  4. We all have those days where absolutely nothing goes right. Hope you can salvage a skirt or perhaps a sleeveless shell top/ camisole out of that gorgeous fabric

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    1. Thanks for the support Kristy - the fabric is so gorgeous (excuse the pun) it seems such a pity to just throw it out - maybe a little top would be the perfect antidote.

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  5. Oh so sad! Maybe some shorts - the Colette Iris doesn't use heaps of fabric, and in a pinch you could make the waistband out of a plain pink fabric...... Or a skirt as others have suggested. Or 35 hair scrunchies :)

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    1. 35 hair scrunchies made me laugh!! with my cropped hair it would probably be as useful as this dress is!
      Shorts are a fabulous idea!

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  6. Oh so sad ;( when this happens to me I try to make something totally off the wall like a corset or bra top and knickers! Just for fun ;}

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    1. I like that idea rebecca - that could be the perfect way to turn this into something that makes me happy!

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  7. Maybe there's enough fabric in the skirt to turn it into a peplum for the bodice? It's such fun fabric with those wide pink stripes, I hope you can still work something out! And I love your cat top <3

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    1. Thats a great idea about the peplum Elise and thanks for the compliment on the cat top :)

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  8. When we sew for ourselves, many of the things we make are the first trial of the pattern and the fabric. So of course things can go wrong because many aspects are new to us. You can't make omelets without making eggs.
    In the industry we call this prototyping and simply discard the first and move onto the second prototype with improvements. So mistakes are part of our development process. And broken samples either go home with the staff or go to charity. So they live again.

    This is the part of this process I like; our mistakes are our best-learned lessons. You’ll never do it twice and now you’re twice the seamstress you were yesterday. Hoorah!
    However when it's a loved piece of fabric I would persist. Do you have any scraps? If so I would attempt to insert a small section (matching stripes) preferably the side seam where it can be slightly hidden by the arm. I believe the fabric and style is so striking that no one will notice your insert.

    BTW I blame the unpicker (use fine scissors only). We have all wrecked garments with them. And I've seen too many broken hearts and broken garments to ever use one again (teaching). They are not called seam rippers for nothing! :)

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  9. I have had something similar happen to me recently. I attempted what should have been the most gorgeous dress in the world for the Mad Men 2 Challenge and it was going brilliantly. Various mistakes happened along the way and it has turned into a complete disaster. I feel like with a lot of hard work it could be saved but I don't know if I can face the amount of effort that it is going to take or whether I would be best calling it quits. I hope you find the drive to perhaps attempt your dress again though, those pink stripes are fabulous. xxx

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  10. That stinks! I hate it when that happens to a project. Maybe you could make a skirt from the fabric? Or a bag perhaps? Childrens clothes?

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  11. I can relate sometimes those mistakes just start to overwhelm a project. I love your blog; I've nominated you for an award.
    http://melodysews.blogspot.com/2013/06/liebster-award-thank-you-for-nominating.html

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