On a Lark » dress

Free patterns are the best patterns

Emily — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:47:41 +0000

While procrastinating the other day, I found this great free pattern, courtesy of Fabric.com, for a beach cover up. Pretty cute huh?
I’m thinking about leaving the button closure out and instead just sew that seam up a bit. If you found the right fabric, it could be a great sundress, and so easy. Especially after the graduation dress malfunction, I’m scaling back my ambition level with clothing. I just ordered this fabric but, of course, not enough for this whole dress:

It’s from the Anna Maria Horner Little Folks line. I’ve been looking at this fabric for forever and I finally just bought it. I think I might use the pattern on the bottom and navy or something on the top?

Before I get started on this dress, I have a new project in the works. I’m making a bag designed to hold a camera and lenses for a high school classmate that is now a professional photographer. I’m so excited to get started and see how it turns out. More to come on this project later…

Woes in the world of sewing

Emily — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:11:51 +0000

Soooo….remember the graduation dress I worked on this spring? Well it came out great! It had been hanging up for the last few weeks waiting for graduation. But what did I wear on Saturday? A blue and white sundress that I bought last summer. Why? Because when I put on my graduation dress about 30 minutes before I was set to march, the zipper on my dress failed. At first I thought I maybe made the dress too tight, but it wasn’t even that. Somewhere along the line, the zipper was damaged and no matter what I do it comes off track. Has anyone had this problem with invisible zippers?

Anyhow, I’m not heartbroken about it. I really enjoyed the process of making it, and my graduation day was still full of sunshine, friends, family, and happiness. But now I’m faced with a new challenge. Do I fix the dress or not? I would definitely wear it again, but without a specific event in mind, I’m not sure I can handle the frustration and time involved in taking out the zipper and putting in a new one. I guess we’ll see how it goes : )

So a few lessons were learned in all other:
1. Really test out any garment made for a special day. Notable, pull on the zipper
2. Always keep a back up at hand.
3. Make sure you have enough time to change into your backup dress after you realize that your first dress isn’t working and still get coffee. A good cup of coffee on the porch can cure a lot of things.

Finally finished!

Emily — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:37:22 +0000

Well, I finished my graduation dress over the weekend. And with three weeks to spare! This project was a huge learning curve for me! LOTS of hand sewing, which I’m generally terrible at. It took a few goes, but I got the hang of it.

I’m going to put a full pattern review on Pattern Review soon, but if any of you are thinking about using this pattern (Butterick 5353), here are a few things I noticed:

1. The sizes run a bit big. Using my measurements, I should have cut a 12, but I cut a 10 and ended up taking about 2 inches from the back center seam and an inch from each seam under the arm. So don’t necessarily trust their sizes chart.
2. Next time I will make a less structured dress. Fitting is frustrating
3. I think this pattern might be better suited for a stiffer material than Swiss Dot, but I really like the look of lighter material.
4. I’m going to try hard not to freak out when I make a mistake on a project, because I made a lot of this one and it still worked out. This is including the hole in the skirt that I created when I ripped the zipper out for the fourth time a little bit too vigorously. A moment to breath and a little bit of iron on patch, and it was as good as new.

And in closing, a photo of Otto the Puppy at 4 weeks:

Hope you’re all having a lovely Monday!

Invisible Zipper How-To

Emily — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:35:03 +0000

It’s been raining here the last few days but the sun is shining at our house! My roommate has grow lights up and the space heater on in our bathroom for a whole army of little seedlings. Watermelon, eggplant, brussel sprouts. Yum. Only two plants have been attacked by the puppies so far. We’re hoping to keep the seedling death toll to a minimum from here on out .

While my roommate has been busy in our makeshift greenhouse, my never ending graduation dress saga is slowly dragging to a close. In truth, I’m really enjoying keeping a project going this long. There’s no rush, so when I get frustrated I can put it aside and tackle it again the next day. Anyhow, one of the final pieces of the puzzle is installing an invisible zipper. You know the type, they live on your suit skirts and cocktail dresses. Who knew they could be such a trick to get just right? After several attempts, I got it right and I didn’t even use a fancy invisible zipper foot. So here’s a little bit on how I did it.

The first step is ironing the zipper out on a low iron setting. I had read to do this, but I didn’t really get the point until I sewed it in without ironing it enough and it was far from “invisible”. You have to take the zipper teeth and actually unroll them away from the tape, more than you would expect. You’ll know you’ve got it right when the zipper is upside down and you can clearly see the two little rows of stitching on the back of the zipper teeth. In the image of below, the bottom side of the zipper is ironed and the top side is not.

I didn’t have an invisible zipper foot, but they look pretty cool and I think it definitely would have made this job easier. But still, it’s completely doable without the specific foot. You just have to make sure that you use your fingers to keep the zipper flat so that you can sew as close to the zipper teeth as humanly possible.

I had plenty of chances to get the picture above because I sewed on and ripped off this zipper quite a few times. Below is how it looks with both sides sewn on but before the lining is attached. I’ll iron in the seam so the zipper teeth are on the edge and hand sew the lining to opposite side of the zipper.

And there it is zipped up. I still can’t completely believe it worked. Sewing is magic.

Keep an eye out for a more detailed tutorial on Hubpages soon!

Spring time and dresses

Emily — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:12:33 +0000

Do you know that feeling that you get when you step inside after standing by a bonfire as the sun goes down? And your nose and ears are cold but the rest of you still has the lingering warmth of the fire? And the house smells like fire and spring time? That is the best. It looks like it might finally be spring time in Maine. The flowers are sprouting. The driveway is muddy.

Besides enjoying the spring weather, I got my bridesmaid’s dress for my brother’s wedding. His fiance (who is probably the most organized and sane bride-to-be that I know) told us all to find a black cocktail dress for the occasion. No seafoam green tulle will be rotting in my closet! So here’s what I picked (from J. Crew):
I love it so much that I want it in other colors. I wonder if I could make my own. Has anyone sewn with silk tricotine? It seems like a relatively easy pattern, but I’m pretty new to working with slippery materials that might not respond well to my furious seam ripping.

I also picked new fabric for my graduation dress! I’m starting to get a little panicked that it won’t be ready in time, because I only have about 6 weeks! And as it turns out, they still expect me to do homework until I actually graduate. Crazy. Anyhow, I went with a little bit more informal fabric, and I’m excited. I picked blue light weight chambray for the top and the deep red swiss dot that I showed in a previous post for the bottom:

It’s going to be great. What are you doing to celebrate spring time?