Lemonade from Lemons
April started out so good sewing wise. I made some great garments that I love and was moving along just fine until I made this:
The first lemon was McCall's 7572, and on the dress form, it doesn't look bad. But take a closer look...
The v-neckline is way too low. I don't usually have issues with a little cleavage showing, but this is WAY more than a little. And see how it looks like there are grown on sleeves? They're not. That is a TON of excess fabric. I used all scrap fabrics for this muslin, so it's not really a waste, but even after I messed around with adding darts to take out the excess fabric in the bust and closed up the V so it wasn't so va-va-voom plunging, it was still "meh". It's decent enough to throw on for a Saturday when I want to do yardwork or wear around the house in general, but I'm not going to waste good fabric to make another one. This is the second time I've ignored the reviews on a McCall pattern on Patternreview.com and have come to regret it. Lesson learned. For real.
But this next one...this one is a whole bushel of lemons:
This is McCall's 7115. And I LOVE this pattern for a casual everyday dress. One thing I've learned during quarantine sewing is that I do not own enough casual clothing for when I'm not in the office. So this pattern, which can be a romper too, really fit the bill.
I chose the cold shoulder sleeves, which turned out perfect, did a pretty good job on the pattern matching, and I was super inspired by @emilyhallmandesigns on Instagram and some beautiful blue and white fabric she used for a wrap dress recently, that I knew I had to have this fabric when I saw the remnant on lafinchfabrics.com
Let me start by saying, the pattern is NOT the problem. It was ALL the part of the sewist...aka, me...
Lemon 1 - I typically add 1" in length to the bodice of most patterns. At 5'9", I'm considerably taller than the 5'5" most patterns are drafted for. Skirts can be OK sometimes, pants I almost always add 2". Again, these are standard adjustments for me. So I did the same here, to the front and back pieces. I got everything cut out and had just enough fabric to squeak by on this. Do you know what this pattern has? Buttons. Do you know what button packets have? Facings. Do you know where I did NOT add 1"...yep, the facings. And I didn't have even close to enough fabric to cut out another set. I did adjust it on my interfacing and I cut scraps to fill in the gap on the facing, but I was so irritated with myself.
Lemon 2 - Those facings? Sewed them to the wrong side of the fabric instead of the right side. Spent a good 40 minutes frog stitching...so much fun...
Lemon 3 - this fabric, a rayon voile, unravels quickly. I marked by 5/8 seam allowances and serged the side seams and shoulders. Or I thought I marked 5/8. Ahem. I have apparently been using non-commerical patterns for the last two months and forgot where the 5/8 is on my serger. What I actually serged was 3/8. Since I had traced the seam allowances on my fabric, it was easy to see immediately and I used my regular sewing machine to just sew on the correct seam allowance, leaving the serving in place, but it was still annoying.
Lemon 4 - the piece de resistance! I read through the directions. Twice. But somehow, when I got to the skirt and the ruffle, I completely missed that the instructions have you gather the ruffle and sew it to the skirt, then sew the skirt to the bodice. I might have noticed that my notches weren't quite matching up, but I just kept going. Everything was fine until I got to the skirt portion. And realized my error. And I had serged that ruffle on to the bodice. I can absolutely tell you, there is no going back. I was not going to try to unpick that ruffle from the bodice for anything.
So, I've decided to make it a peplum top. My work has decided we're going to work from home at least another month. This will certainly be cute enough to wear on a zoom conference call with my team. I braved Joann's last week, waiting in a line for almost an hour, to buy buttons. So I just need to hem the ruffle, the sleeves, and add buttonholes and buttons.
Speaking of buttons, I bought a boatload of buttons for anything I might need in the near future!! People can be crazy and hoard toilet paper all they want. I've decided that I'm going to stock up on notions so that in the event we have a second wave of this in the fall, or it comes back next year, I will not be stuck standing in long lines or scouring the internet like a crazy person for. So interfacing will be bought by the bolt, buttons and elastic in bulk, and I'm even stocking up on invisible and regular zippers since I have a color palette I typically stick to. And thread!! I bought the big Gutterman spool in black and white right as this all started, but I am out of white. So I think the 5000 yard roll at Wawak.com is in my future when it's back in stock.
On that note, I'll be using blue thread to finish this out. I have the exact shade as the print, so I can work with that. I'll probably finish this up in the next couple of days so I can post it for #memademay2020. Follow me on Instagram @sewearley to see the final results!
The v-neckline is way too low. I don't usually have issues with a little cleavage showing, but this is WAY more than a little. And see how it looks like there are grown on sleeves? They're not. That is a TON of excess fabric. I used all scrap fabrics for this muslin, so it's not really a waste, but even after I messed around with adding darts to take out the excess fabric in the bust and closed up the V so it wasn't so va-va-voom plunging, it was still "meh". It's decent enough to throw on for a Saturday when I want to do yardwork or wear around the house in general, but I'm not going to waste good fabric to make another one. This is the second time I've ignored the reviews on a McCall pattern on Patternreview.com and have come to regret it. Lesson learned. For real.
But this next one...this one is a whole bushel of lemons:
I chose the cold shoulder sleeves, which turned out perfect, did a pretty good job on the pattern matching, and I was super inspired by @emilyhallmandesigns on Instagram and some beautiful blue and white fabric she used for a wrap dress recently, that I knew I had to have this fabric when I saw the remnant on lafinchfabrics.com
Let me start by saying, the pattern is NOT the problem. It was ALL the part of the sewist...aka, me...
Lemon 1 - I typically add 1" in length to the bodice of most patterns. At 5'9", I'm considerably taller than the 5'5" most patterns are drafted for. Skirts can be OK sometimes, pants I almost always add 2". Again, these are standard adjustments for me. So I did the same here, to the front and back pieces. I got everything cut out and had just enough fabric to squeak by on this. Do you know what this pattern has? Buttons. Do you know what button packets have? Facings. Do you know where I did NOT add 1"...yep, the facings. And I didn't have even close to enough fabric to cut out another set. I did adjust it on my interfacing and I cut scraps to fill in the gap on the facing, but I was so irritated with myself.
Lemon 2 - Those facings? Sewed them to the wrong side of the fabric instead of the right side. Spent a good 40 minutes frog stitching...so much fun...
Lemon 3 - this fabric, a rayon voile, unravels quickly. I marked by 5/8 seam allowances and serged the side seams and shoulders. Or I thought I marked 5/8. Ahem. I have apparently been using non-commerical patterns for the last two months and forgot where the 5/8 is on my serger. What I actually serged was 3/8. Since I had traced the seam allowances on my fabric, it was easy to see immediately and I used my regular sewing machine to just sew on the correct seam allowance, leaving the serving in place, but it was still annoying.
Lemon 4 - the piece de resistance! I read through the directions. Twice. But somehow, when I got to the skirt and the ruffle, I completely missed that the instructions have you gather the ruffle and sew it to the skirt, then sew the skirt to the bodice. I might have noticed that my notches weren't quite matching up, but I just kept going. Everything was fine until I got to the skirt portion. And realized my error. And I had serged that ruffle on to the bodice. I can absolutely tell you, there is no going back. I was not going to try to unpick that ruffle from the bodice for anything.
So, I've decided to make it a peplum top. My work has decided we're going to work from home at least another month. This will certainly be cute enough to wear on a zoom conference call with my team. I braved Joann's last week, waiting in a line for almost an hour, to buy buttons. So I just need to hem the ruffle, the sleeves, and add buttonholes and buttons.
Speaking of buttons, I bought a boatload of buttons for anything I might need in the near future!! People can be crazy and hoard toilet paper all they want. I've decided that I'm going to stock up on notions so that in the event we have a second wave of this in the fall, or it comes back next year, I will not be stuck standing in long lines or scouring the internet like a crazy person for. So interfacing will be bought by the bolt, buttons and elastic in bulk, and I'm even stocking up on invisible and regular zippers since I have a color palette I typically stick to. And thread!! I bought the big Gutterman spool in black and white right as this all started, but I am out of white. So I think the 5000 yard roll at Wawak.com is in my future when it's back in stock.
On that note, I'll be using blue thread to finish this out. I have the exact shade as the print, so I can work with that. I'll probably finish this up in the next couple of days so I can post it for #memademay2020. Follow me on Instagram @sewearley to see the final results!
Comments