Sunday 9 March 2008

Shift dress. Almost. Done...

The shift dress is hanging over my head like I don’t know what! It is so close to finished now that I just can’t wait to get it done. I originally posted that I was making the longer version of the dress (Simplicity 3744), but it seems my evil twin was in charge the day I bought the fabric and she only got enough for the short version. I duly cut out and made up the short version on the off chance it would be okay. It wasn’t. It was VERY short! After a quick debrief with my Mum when she came over to fit the toile of my wedding outfit we decided that I should get more fabric and make the band as in view C. I worried that it would look tacked on but Mum convinced me that if I top stitched it in the same way as the facing and placket it would look intentional. So that’s what I did.

Fortunately we still had some of the fabric left at work so I was able to buy another 40cms to cut the band. I had enough leftover lining to cut that too. So now it’s all done except the hand stitching and do you think I can find a nice fine hand sewing needle anywhere? Nope, not a one. I must own thousands (well at least a couple of dozen) and the gremlins have hidden them all! So the finishing has to wait until I go to work tomorrow and buy some needles.

On to the wedding outfit. I have fitted the dress toile and have had to make some interesting alterations to the pattern. I’ll do a detailed post on these later. I won’t be doing any extra work on the dress for a few weeks because the fella and I have just embarked on a serious weight loss/fitness plan. I’ll be working on the jacket instead as the fit in that is unlikely to be badly affected by my losing weight. I’ll be making a practice version in denim and then if that goes well I’ll make it in the gold silk dupion (not really comparable fabrics I know but I really hate making toiles, I’m fairly confident about the fit and I only really want to check if the style works on me and with the dress style!).

Finally a non-sewing project I’ve been working on – the mermaid scarf from knitting daily. I am using a periwinkle blue 4ply cotton from Rowan that I bought in England back in 2001. The evil twin must have been in charge then too as she picked up yarn from two different dyelots which was really noticeable in the stocking stitch top I was knitting. I couldn’t bear to part with it though and I knew that eventually I’d find a project that would disguise the colour difference. I started with the recommended 3.5mm hook but found it was coming out too small so I started again with a 4.5mm hook and it looks great. I’m about half way along the first layer so it shouldn’t take too long to finish – I hope.

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