FO: Lady Skater Dress

Lady Skater Dress

Just the Facts:

Fabric:  purchased 2 yards of emerald/teal/blue interlock knit from JoAnn's (think I still have enough for a t-shirt!) $12.70
Notions: Thread from stash, clear elastic
Pattern:  KitschyCoo Lady Skater Dress
Year: modern ~2013
Time to Complete:  ~8 hours including assembling and cutting the pattern
First Worn: October 16, 2013
Wear Again: yup
Total Cost: $14 + $10.50 or so for the pattern

(Ugh.  Weird face.)  I cut the size 3 in the pattern because that's what matched my upper bust.  I had a really hard time with that neckband.  And then I realized I didn't transfer all the pattern markings.  D'oh.  This went together fairly quickly and easily and probably wouldn't have taken me nearly as long to make this as it did if I wasn't fiddling around with my different machine stitches and zig zag lengths and widths to get the right one.  I also tried to use my walking foot.  No joy.  The pressure was all wrong and I didn't want to mess with that any further.

 

This shirt is actually a pretty good fit.  I always have a hard time finding tops that fit right in RTW.  With knits, the shoulder seams don't hit the right place, the armpits ride up crazy bad, and there's a ton of wrinkling in the back.  With this top, it actually fits pretty good in the arms and shoulders.  I still need the swayback adjustment--not because of an actual swayback, but because my butt is dramatically larger than my back and it creates extra fabric along the small of my back.

I adjusted the back quite a bit here.  Actually, when I looked in the mirror, there weren't any wrinkles at all back there.  I guess these came about from the way I was standing.  Whatever.  I can't see them and they aren't uncomfortable.

Another reason this took me so long is because I essentially had the entire dress finished, save the hem, and I decided the waist was pulled way too low.  I knew I wouldn't wear it this way and ain't nobody got time to make something that they ain't gonna wear.  Right, Sweet Brown?  So I pulled out my super sweet new Gingher seam ripper and unpicked the serged side seams and the serged waist.  FYI:  A lot of thread ended up on my carpet.  Imagine an Alot of Thread.  There was an Alot monster on my floor.  A big blue and white thready beast.

After the unpicking debacle, I decided to chop 1.5" off the bottom of the bodice.  I resewed this baby up and now I have this basic blue dress.

It could stand to be a bit thinner in the waist.  I think at least 1" thinner.  I'll grade down to the 2 in the waist next time I make this dress.  Oh yes.  There WILL be a next time.  I have some black jersey stuff that will make an awesome half-sleeve version.  Maybe I'll even change the scoop to a V.  I has a fancee.  I feel like I'm showing an awful lot of leg in this dress.  Oops.  I guess I'm more modest than I thought!  I cut the skirt to the approx.imate finished length I wanted and then I chopped off some of the bodice.  My bad.  But look at my quads.  I mean seriously.  I'm so ripped.

This photo makes me look seriously pregnant.  Should I ever become actually pregnant, I think I will have a lady skater dress for every day of the week.  How perfect?

I went ahead and serged the raw edge of the hem before hemming it.  LIKE A BOSS.  Third serger project, what-what!  I did a twin needle hem.  This is my first actual project using the twin needle.  It took me about 45 minutes of playing around with the settings to get the underside of the stitch to be somewhat satisfactory.  I still need to play more because I got the dreaded tunnel on the right side.

Look at my sexy legs tunnel.  Vintage machines are so amazing and so finnicky.  Do any of my readers sew with a Singer 401/401A?  I could use some tips on getting the fabric to feed correctly with my walking foot.

 

Have a great week!