Wednesday, June 8, 2011

{Dress Sewing: The New Frontier}

There are a ton of sewing blogs out there that inspire me , but there's a couple in particular that I adore.  Jessica from Green Apples has been amazing in helping me with the first baby steps and has some amazing posts for beginner sewists like myself explaining fabrics and advising some patterns and books for the very beginner. 

She suggested a skirt like this one as my very first project:


 The fabrics are HERE and HERE from fabrics.com .  I have no idea if the main floral is the kind of "cotton Sateen" that Jessica was trying to encourage me to buy, or if the jersey is at all appropriate for the band at the bottom, so if you have a suggestion, please let me know!

Here are two other beginner dress pattern I bought at the same time:


because I happened to catch McCalls during their pattern sale and got ALL THREE for $12 including shipping! Yipee!!!  Next I'll be on the search for a great jersey print for the bottom on, and a luxurious jersey solid for the top convertible dress one.  I almost bought one of those convertible dresses on Etsy for almost $100, so I'm stoked now that I'm going to try to make it instead. :)

I'm scared of this whole dress sewing thing! I hope it turns out okay!

5 comments:

  1. Dresses and skirts are really easy! I think you'll enjoy it.

    Other GREAT resources are the Built by Wendy books. She has some awesome info on sewing with knits, and sewing dresses (along with sewing everything else).

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  2. I am so scared to sew clothes! I attempted a couple of times and I am thinking it's just not my thing. I think I am too impatient or something.

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  3. My one and only attempt at sewing was in my final year of secondary school, when I made a Lord of the Rings-like dress as a final project in art class. All I really remember of it is finishing the damned thing at half past midnight the evening before the presentation and sleeping through my alarm the morning after, cussing at the stupid trims and details that I wanted to have (like a square neckline, someone should have stopped me) and getting an 8/10 while someone who just made 2 large paper-maché chesspieces got a 10/10 for 'originality'... All teenage traumas aside though, I do really like the idea of making my own clothes, hope I have the courage to just go and do it, like you! Good luck!

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  4. I'd love to sew myself some clothes, but I'm scared of cutting the fabric wrong. Thank you for the beginners link, and I'd love to see how your skirt and dresses turn out.

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  5. Great beginner projects as well as things you'll actually wear!

    One word of caution though-- that skirt pattern would be made 1000 times easier on you if you select a non-stretch fabric. Think about trying to cut and sew very straight lines on something that wants to change shape on you at every turn. Those skirts would be perfect (and likely called for anyway) non-stretch fabrics. That will also affect the way the hang on you. A jersey fabric will cling a bit more and hang straight down from your hips, while something a bit more substantial will look like the cover photo.

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