I am in the middle of removing my remaining kitchen cabinets and preparing to buy new ones, so unfortunately, cleaning is not in the forefront of my mind. However, I did spend some time yesterday cleaning out my closet and clearing clothes that I do not wear anymore or find the need to keep. I had donated a good chunk of clothes (clean ones of course!) prior to moving into my new house last August, but it seemed like I could have given more.
A good portion of the clothes I set aside is stuff I had sewn over the years that never found wear either because of poor fit or high-maintenance (i.e. needed intense ironing... ha!). I haven't yet decided what will be donated and what will be tossed. I'd hate to donate something I made so poorly only to have someone else deal with its issues...
Anyways, I took a few photos of the things that I sewed before stuffing them in a bag. I've learned from my mistakes since making these and hopefully my mistakes prevent you from doing them in the future!
This isn't the first dress I've ever sewn because, technically, the first thing I sewed was my high school senior prom dress (which was so tight around my armpits...). However, this is the first dress I made when I picked up sewing again in college. Needless to say, when I started out, I ended up working with a lot of quilting cotton fabric because of the cute and silly prints. I'm slowly moving away from quilting fabric and actually haven't bought any for quite some time now, but the pretty prints are very tempting...
Back to the dress. This is a somewhat soft blue quilting cotton with sprinkles that I got from Joann coupled with (somewhat) matching cupcake buttons. I used Simplicity 1873, one of the Cynthia Rowley patterns. The bodice is actually quite big and the neckline is too low for me which is primarily why I do not want to keep this dress. I know now that for most commercial patterns, I need to shorten the bodice at the shoulders, take in the bust, and extend the arm holes to make tops fit. I could fix this dress, but it's too much effort for the fabric quality, I think. The pleats were also made intentionally uneven as per the instructions and it's not a look I quite like. Also, this dress overall seems a bit childish for my age. (Unfortunately...?)
(Excuse the wrinkles.) I used Simplicity 2180 and (again, sadly) a quilting cotton with a letter post print from Joann fabrics. This dress, I think, is too cute not to keep. But, I have not worn it out at all since it was made a few years ago. Again, the bust is a bit big and the shoulders are a bit off. I find that most commercial patterns are too wide at the shoulders, which is the case for this dress. The waist also sits slightly lower than my natural waistline and that causes the back elastic band to move up. I also put the zipper in rather crappily and on the wrong side so it looks messed up there...
In spite of these mistakes, I do like the pattern. The back is so pretty. I have used this pattern again with some modifications and like the way it looks now. (That post will come later...)
The issue with this dress if that the princess seams are slightly too close to the center so the seams sit close to the inner top of the bust. I never make muslins because I am far too impatient, so I made an alteration to this dress right off the bat based on alterations I made with bodices that have darts (ha a terrible mistake...). I've actually worn this dress out once for dinner for some reason... I don't know what I was thinking. It's too bad because I like the fabric print. I got it for $1.99/yd at the (har har) $1.99 fabric store!
The pattern is Butterick 4443. I believe this is the first dress I made with princess seams and after making many more with them, I prefer them over darts now. Even now, I have issues with dart placements on most things, but things are slowly getting better.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for part 2!
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