Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Second Beginning



Sarah B:
For too long I have indulged in gourmet butter and Belgian chocolate and I was unable to fit into my special occasion clothes. I needed to find a perfect dress to wear to my friend’s wedding in two months. Having tried on about every size 18-20 dress at a Sydney department store, I found a silk dress that I could fit into with a pattern that was flattering on my unflattering silhouette; it was a shame that the fabric print looked like a cat had thrown up on it. In spite of the vomitous print, and exorbitant personal-loan-worthy price-tag, it was the most passable garment. What was I to do?
My sister and I had bought a sewing machine a couple months earlier and we made some curtains. Great, I could sew a straight line. My sister being a crafty and creative being rang up an easy vogue shift dress. The dress was very wearable after a strategic bow was placed on the neckline as the fit was a little too low. So instead of my chucking a fitting room tantrum, I made my sister come to the fitting room with me. With the aid of her trusty notepad and we started to jot down notes about the cut of the dress. The dress pattern had an empire line style with cross over v-neckline and darts at the centre of the bust and a band under the bust which continued to waistline but had a skirt that was semi-fitted to calf length. We make a basic drawing of the front and back of the dress, noting that the band under the bust had an extra material sewn in so that it sat flat.
Later that week I went to spotlight to trawl through the pattern books to see if I could something similar. After half a hour I found a Simplicity pattern that had a similar bodice but with a shorter skirt.

The next step was to find material that would be suitable. Of course I could not use silk, being my first dress and all. Even the material at spotlight was too good (and exy) for my first sewing attempt. So off to Campsie. I regularly shopped at Campsie at the fantastic butcher and fruit and vege shops (but that is another blog - don't get me started about the dumplings or the gelato from croydon park) but had not ventured up to the fabric shops which you could see from the next block had bargain $2/m fabric. That was what I needed. I didn't want to feel as if I couldn't make a mistake.

So with super cheap material for a toile and some polyester with a silk chiffon look I was ready to start cutting out the pattern and sewing.

The first attempt at the toile did not look promising as there were major problems with the waistline and bust. The 'cat vomit' dress, as we charmingly dubbed it, was starting to look okay.

Then I found in one of my mother’s Tupperware boxes that still had dust on it from the 1980’s a sewing treasure chest - tapemeasures, press studs, buttons, old zippers and something that looked like a belt. It wasn’t a belt but a stay for a dress with a label already sewn on.

The label was for Olga Munro, 119 King St, Sydney.






This was the Sewing Gods and our Munro clan residing ''upstairs' telling me to keep going.
So 3 toiles later and 5 types of sleeves, I finally had a pattern that fitted and was ready to start sewing the dress. Then the new headache.



Advice: Novice sewers should not start sewing with chiffon...

I choose the material based on colour (dark peacock blue) and thought that it had a lovely drape. The chiffon and lining material were very slippery and had lots of shear so were very difficult materials to work with. Needless to say, I learnt about basting pretty fast as even the pinned seams moved too much. I had to baste everything with rather small running stitich that needed to be joined with permanent stitches.
So 3 days before the wedding I was basting the invisible zip. Of course I chose not to use a normal zip with had detailed instructions on the simplicity pattern. The instructions on the invisible zip were very cryptic for a first time user so thank god for youtube video instructions.

The dress was worn to the wedding. It fitted, it was in a colour that I loved and didn’t look like it was made by a novice. I had a wonderful time and the seams didn't split even after hours of dancing.

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