Disclaimer: bike racers – click away now, this is a sewing related post. Unless you want to learn about my Thesis Proposal Suit. The good news is the Thesis is on bike related stuff.
You may recall a few weeks ago that I embarked on a new sewing project – Butterick 4060, the Thesis Proposal Suit.
My plan was to take photos along the way of my progress, but that never happened. I tend to sew in fits and spurts, the fits being mad marathon sessions at the machine where hours pass and I never even stop to eat (hence the 13-16% body fat).
Well, I am pleased to announce that the suit is nearing completion. The only thing left to do is hem the dress and finish hemming/attaching the lining to the jacket along the bottom.
This was an, uh, interesting project, to say the least. Because this project had a purpose, and it was imperative that the quality be top notch, I really took my time on this to ensure I did everything right. My seams were perfectly straight. My cuts were razor sharp. Everything was meticulously marked so no dart was out of place. My set in sleeves went in flawlessly on the first try.
And then of course, the mistakes started.
Mistake number one: I used the wrong side of the fabric. Seriously. I am using poly blend suiting that has a back pinstripe and white textured line woven into the nap of the fabric. I marked the fabric after cutting the pieces out with my tracing wheel and carbon and didn’t realize until I was half way through the jacket that I was working on the wrong side. Oh well, no big deal, if no one ever sees the RIGHT side, they won’t know this is the WRONG side.
Mistake number two: the pattern is early 1960s and uses sew in interfacing. I use bondable interfacing. I was confused because the pattern directions instructed you to sew the undercollar and collar/facing on to the bodice, then sew interfacing to the bodice and undercollar. Normally with interfacing I attach it before sewing the interfaced piece to the garment. So, I thought that I was misreading it and I went and bonded my interfacing to the collar/facing piece.
Oops. It was supposed to be underneath, on the bodice and undercollar. Fortunately I used heavy duty shirting interfacing that doesn’t bond that well and I was able to rip it out without damaging anything, cut more interfacing and attach it in the correct spot. It wasn’t perfect but it was at least in the correct space now.
Mistake number 3: not so much a mistake as a sizing flaw. The pattern is a 10 – 31 bust, 24 waist, 33 hip. I am technically a 31.25″ bust, 25.5″ waist, and 33″ hip. Well, at least that is the size that I was when I got my dress form back in January and adjusted it. Apparently I have lost 1/2″ on my hip and 1/4″ on my bust since then, but whatever…it was a fairly close match.
The amount of wearing ease in the dress combined with the sack-like straight cut resulted in a garment that more closely resembled a pilowcase than anything else. I had already decided that I did not want short sleeves, so I planned on making the dress sleeveless and using an armhole facing pattern from an existing dress. Well, that didn’t work so well. I had problems with the neckline facing as well, namely that the pattern called for interfaced neckline facing, and the result was something that was so stiff it practically stood on it’s own. I removed the original interfaced facing and then decided to redraft a one piece neckline/armhole facing piece. I used the lining fabric that was in the jacket and opted for no interfacing. This was all well and good except I was now working without a pattern, without directions. I drafted the pattern using the existing bodice pattern and got a nice match for my one piece facing. I made two parts, one for the front and one for the back. The I took leave of my senses and proceeded to sew everything together in reverse order.
I had already attached the shoulder seams, and then had to undo them to get the facing in. Then I stupidly attached the facing to the shoulder seams in addition to the armhole and neckline…result was I really couldn’t easily attach the shoulder seams. The final result here was a rather interesting shoulder seam. Fortunately the jacket will cover that up. Also, I stupidly attached the facing BEFORE I finished the edges, so I had to go back and turn those under and finish them later. I did remember to understitch the facing, but I screwed up on one armhole part and didn’t do it close enough to the seam so I need to go back and try to fix that.
In addition to my little design issues of converting set in sleeves to sleeveless, I also had to make some drastic changes to the dress. It was soo big that it hung shapelessly on me. I asked the lovely people of the Internet sewing forums for advice and they responded with
a.) add front darts
b.) add rear darts
c.) take in additional material at the side seams
I did all of these and the result is a much better fitting dress. Ideally I think it would look better if it was a fitted sheath but that would really be getting away from the intended style, so I left it a little straighter in the waist. I also shortened the zipper considerably, from 22″ to about 8″. There is enough stretch in the fabric that I decided to avoid a longer zip. I am also starting to wonder if I should do a sway back adjustment to my patterns. I don’t have extreme lordosis and didn’t ever think that I had a sway back, but I notice a trend in anything that I make with a waist that there seems to be a lot of excess fabric at the small of my back. Hopefully I’ll get this figured out by the time I embark on my wedding dress sewing project (I very well may be pushing the wedding date back to sometime in 2012 at the rate I am going).
This pattern also had rather vague directions on sewing the lining to the jacket. The Ruffley Jacket that I made earlier actually used the ‘bagging a lining’ method so I decided to try that again. It worked flawlessly, although the instructions here were a bit different in that they had you attach the bodice lining BEFORE attaching the lining sleeves. However, this was still very easy and I was able to go back and do the lining set in sleeves after attaching it to the bodice (I had not finished the bottom yet).
So, as of now all that is left is finishing up the lining hem and the dress hem.
I’ll post photos when I do that.
What I have learned so far from this little experiment is that:
Misses size 10 is too big for me, despite my measurements being the same
I successfully moved up a bust dart on the dress to work with my petite frame; next time remember to do that on the jacket too
I need to reconsider messing with sleeve styles since this was a near disaster.
I really need to pay attention to the fabric side to avoid the wrong side mistake in the future.
Stripes are easy to work with when it comes to sewing straight seams