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Sewing Adventures: Simplicity 1873

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A few weeks ago I was doing some procrastisewing (you know, procrastinating by sewing). I’d decided it was suddenly vital to empty the work in progress box and get some of the half mades into something wearable or decide of they were just terrible and cut them into something else.

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This dress has been sitting there since this post where I detailed how I’d cut the sleeves upside down. Well it got put away in a huff and it’s been pulled out a few times but every time I tried it on I felt huge in it. A high neck and sleeves are not my thing. So I pulled out the sleeves, cut down the neck and tried it on again.

Front view

Good enough. I finished the edges with bias binding and popped an invisible zipper into the back. I’ve not sewn in an invisible in an age and was ever so pleased when it went straight in. I use my regular zip foot not one of the special invisible zip foots as I find them way too much drama. Regular zip foot, nice and slow is the way for me.

So I was all excited I had a pretty new dress to wear. I’ve worn it a few times since and until this morning had no idea that this happens at the back.

back view

What an ugly ugly wrinkle. We took these photos on the way out this morning and since coming back I’ve been trying to figure out how on earth I missed such an obvious and fixable wrinkle (back length needs shortening). Well it appears that when I try on my dresses and look at my back in the mirror I round my shoulders. By doing this I lengthen out the back panels and the wrinkle disappears! So lesson learnt, stand up straight and alter that back panel.

Fabric: Japanese Lawn from Spotlight

Dress Pattern: Cynthia Rowley by Simplicity 1873

Alterations: scooped out neck.

Alterations for next time: take length out of centre back panel, don’t take neck scoop quite so wide as some bra straps show at the current width.

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Sewing Adventures – disaster time

You know how sometimes you should just go back to bed and pull the cover over your head and hide? Yeah? well that was my week.

I managed to ruin an entire pot of quinoa (yes it’s water and a grain and yes it was really ruined). This was on top of a few cooking disasters earlier in the week.

Then I was merrily finishing off a dress when I realised I had upside down sleeves

upside down sleeve

So I packed up my machine, had a nap and then a cup of tea to contemplate what had happened.

I purchased my normal amount of fabric for a dress. This is Japanese Lawn from Spotlight which I use a lot, so I know exactly how much I need. But I normally don’t have sleeves and this is a directional print. Am sure when I was cutting it out I only just had room for the sleeves and had assumed that I had cut them so they were the right way round. Clearly I hadn’t.

So I can either try and put the sleeves in back to front, they are shaped so this may lead to some fit issues? Or cut the armholes and neck to be the same as my current sleeveless versions of this pattern and not have the higher neck and sleeves.

Either way am not rushing into anything because I really don’t want this to be a disaster dress, it’s too pretty a fabric for that.

So tell me, did you have a disaster weekend too or was it just me?