Continuing on with My #sewoveritsummer

I've checked another project off my list and made myself a summer version of the Heather Dress and I couldn't be happier about it!  I practically lived in my quilted jersey version this past fall and winter so I knew I wanted to make a short sleeve one for warmer weather.  It's the perfect dress for just throwing on.  No fuss, no muss.  Dress it up, dress it down.  It doesn't matter, it just feels great wearing it.  And pockets.  Oh those pockets.  I do love me some big pockets!

There's not too much to say about this one that I didn't already say when I made my winter one.  I sewed it pretty much directly from the envelope (Ok, printer since it was a PDF) and shortened the hemline about 2" before hemming it.  I did add a bit of stabilizing clear elastic along the shoulder seams because I was using a lightweight knit but those are the only changes I did to it from the original design/instructions.

I have my eye on a really pretty grey and yellow print jersey at the local Fabricland that I really want to make another Heather with, but it's going to have to go on sale or they're going to have to put out another 50% off email coupon before I take the plunge on buying it, because I refuse to spend $20/metre for a dress especially given right now I rarely have the opportunity to wear a dress since my weekday wardrobe consists of jeans and steel toes... And yet I keep making dresses and buying fabric for dresses and dreaming of dresses.  Huh.  Logic was possibly never my strong point! LOL

I'm not sure what project to tackle next.  Perhaps I'll grab my list, close my eyes, point and see what I land on!

Combining Two Crafty Loves

I'm back with another Sew Over It garment.  What did I tell you?  It's going to be a #sewoveritsummer LOL

This time it's a Betty and I've combined two of my crafty loves into one dress.  Last summer when I found the Cotton and Steel yarn ball fabric from the Cat Lady collection on Craftsy I had to snap it up.  It was a ridiculous purchase in which although the sale price was great, the shipping was insane.  It was before Craftsy lowered their shipping costs and I paid more in shipping then I did for the fabric.  But hello!  Fabric.  With yarn on it!!!!!!  Sometimes you just need to be a bit frivolous and ridiculous.

I knew the minute I saw the fabric that it was destined to be a Betty dress.  I've never made Betty before so first things first.  I whipped up a muslin.  And then I did nothing.  I needed to do some alterations and I was perplexed how.  I just could not wrap my head around it so there it sat.  Untouched until a few weeks ago when I decided it was silly to just let it languish and come hell or high water I was going to get it figured out.  

Really the biggest problem was gaping in the V at the back.  I knew that if I pinched out the excess into a dart it solved it, but who wants darts there?  So on my pattern I created the dart where the gaping was then rotated it into the back waist darts.  Problem solved.  I also made the neckline a little deeper and a little less wide, widened the shoulders a smidge, did a sloped shoulder adjustment and finally added a bit of length to the bottom of the bodice.  Sewed up another muslin and was quite pleased with the fit, so cut out and sewed up the dress.  Of course my muslin was playing tricks on me and once the dress was finished I tried it on and gaping was happening everywhere.  Damn it.

I ended up fudging things a bit rather than go back to the drawing board and cut a new bodice because I was pretty tight on fabric at this point as is.  I took up almost an inch in the shoulders and shaved a little off the side seams and that has solved the problems for the most part, except I now have bust darts pointing way off course and some weird bunching at the lower armscye.  I am not going to quibble though.  I'm willing to bet only a seamstress would even look at the darts at all and if they're rude enough to point out that they are looking at my bust that closely then I'm really not interested in talking to them anyways! Ha ha!  In retrospect it occurs to me that perhaps a lot of my problems would have been solved if I'd gone down a size... sadly that didn't occur to me until after the fact.  

On the plus side of things, this is number three for my #2017MakeNine!  More bonuses are that I added pockets (used my favourite pockets which are from the Emery Dress pattern), my invisible zip went in without a hitch (thank you double sided tape - where have you been all my life?!?!) and most importantly I LOVE my new dress!