May 31, 2010

Sewing is for Winners

On occasion, I sew.

I'm more about the curtains and the pillows and the sock monkeys than clothes.

But I love fabric so much that I get overly ambitious every time I'm in a fabric store. This weekend, I decided I was going to tackle some of my projects.

So I took some fabric, chose a pattern, and went to work. Cutting, and measuring, and cutting, and then sewing the bodice, which has GASP! lining, and GASP! darts! I make it through.

A major advantage to making my own dress should be that I can sew it to fit me. But I don't really know how to "fit" clothes. More importantly, I've never uses this pattern before. The bodice more or less fits. The darts are a little pointy. I move on. I power through.

Time for the skirt. Easy, done. Attaching the bodice to the skirt requires some adjustment of the pleats. Done. Zipper time!

And by "zipper time!" I mean, "f%&*#$*&(*$# zipper *(R#*($ time." First it required a special trip to the sewing store, where I found it easier than usual to resist the calls of the lovely fabrics. Sewing is hard.

I get home, put in the zipper, try on the dress. Whoa bad fit, this is not going to fly. Plus the zipper is a little wonky. I remove the zipper, remove the skirt from the bodice, make the bodice band shorter, yell at T for making a loud noise, re-attach said skirt to adjusted bodice, re-attached one side of zipper. Then try to re-attach other side of zipper. Rip out, try again. Dangerously close to tears.

Decide to eat a weird organic brown rice stale marshmallow krispy instead of re-trying zipper attachment.

May Laura Ingalls Wilder was right - store bought dresses ARE special.

Current state of dress. Grr.

I got this dress on the interwebs. It required a click. And a credit card. But no frustration. Or satisfaction, which I suppose I will one day get from finishing the zipper installation. From now on, I may stick to skirts. And sock monkeys. And pillows.

4 comments:

  1. Ohhhh, dresses are hard!! I've tried some alterations, also hard. Tears sometimes involved. And lots of seam-ripping-out. But, pretty fabric! I also like the one from the interweb... where's it from?

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  2. Remember the zipper from your prom dress that you made? Post a photo of that triumph! The photo must be in hard copy only because it's from the last century.

    Why didn't you call me or better yet, Aunt Kathy who installs zippers in her sleep?

    Is the dress salvageable? I like the pattern.

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  3. Anonymous2:50 PM

    you can do it! i highly recommend putting it aside until you have a) eaten protein and b)rested. if i sew past a certain point, i am guaranteed to make mistakes and bring myself to tears of frustration. i try to avoid it, but it still happens. :) good luck!
    --liz

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions! Makes this much more interesting.