17.7.09

Recycled dress (and shrug)

The setup:
I found a huge duvet cover at the Salvation Army for $4 and figured it would make a pretty cute dress. I was figuring on a basic sleeveless style with an a-line skirt.

The pattern:

New Look (will update with the number)
Not that it matters, it ended up FAR from the pattern.

The fabric:

100% cotton recycled duvet cover

The issues:
Numerous. Mainly due to poor size/fabric selection for the pattern.

The process:
Now I've read many times that when you have more than a B cup, you should take the size that corresponds to your high bust measurement (above the fullest part of your bust) because it will better fit your shoulders and neck. Then you can do a full bust adjustment (FBA). According to this pattern, I think I was a 10 in the high bust/shoulders, a 12 in the waist and a 16 in the hips. So I chose the 12 in the top and blended to the 16 in the hips. As it turns out, I really should have picked the 10 in the top. Shoulders were way too big. Also, the FBA method was not quite right. I've since purchased a book on fitting that I hope will help for next time.

Here's what I did:
1. Made existing bust dart bigger through improvisational FBA
2. Added second side dart to get rid of excess waist weirdness
3. Added waist seam to get rid of the rest of the waist weirdness
4. Made strapless to deal with too-big shoulders.
5. Added straps to deal with fear of straplessness.
6. Used bias tape everywhere I could (hem, top, straps, waist)
7. Ended up with completely different dress from pattern.


As for the shrug, I followed this tutorial from Craft Stylish. Ruffles aren't really my thing though, so after I cut out the basic shape of the shrug, I serged the edges, turned them under and stitched with a regular straight stitch. DO NOT STRETCH the fabric, or you will end up with wobbly lettuce edges. These edges will not be subjected to stretch, so you really just want them to lay flat.

The result:
I guess I'm happy with the dress, but it took too much fussing about. Time to seriously get around to making a sloper so I can spend less time making silly adjustments.

On the other hand, the shrug was so simple and awesome. I love a shrug. I suspect I will soon have many more (and maybe a few less T-shirts).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. Rowr!
2. You're in St. John's! Yay!

koala brains said...

LOVE IT! Nice placement of the flower patterns.