This was my second dress attempt and the second time I tried to use a commercial pattern. The first dress was a failed attempt and this one came out pretty good. What I found is that the patterns are ok, but the instructions and the sizing are pretty bad.
First, if I just look at my measurements and use the corresponding pattern size, it's the first step to failure. The first dress was supposed to be a strapless dress, so you can imagine that if the top is too big, then there is no chance. For some reason the final garment has too much nap and so my first dress ended up being unusable. After learning this, for the second dress I used the measurements of the final garment instead of the body measurements to choose the size. This worked much better.
Second, the instructions are either incomplete or too confusing. The first dress instruction never told how to attach the top to the bottom and how to attach the lining. This dress instruction instructed to cut fusible interfacing for the straps but never mentioned when to attach it. So, after cutting the pattern, I just assembled the dress the way I wanted.
In addition, I changed the inside of the top to have 2 layers, because I just don't like bad looking inside. Since this dress didn't have lining, I didn't want to have all these seams showing inside on the top.
Finally, this was my zipper number 3. I attached it with teeth showing on the outside as I wanted to try attaching without sewing the 2 sides of the dress together. The zipper color was a perfect match to the dress color, so it was ok to show it.
Next up, making my own patterns...
EL
No comments:
Post a Comment