Monday, August 18, 2014

Sewing A Knit Dress

In yesterday's post, I showed you my first attempt a making a shirt from a knit fabric.  It's OK, but I'm not as in love with it as I thought I would be.

I decided it was probably the material I chose, and I also thought that if I made the dress from the same pattern, the skirt of the dress might help to pull the top down a bit and fit more like I wanted.

The pattern is for the Comino Cap from kitschycoo and it comes with 4 options.  There's a plain top and dress or there's a top and dress to make with a sweetheart inset at the top.

For both the top and the dress I stuck with the plain jane top.  No need to emphasize my FULL BUST and surely a sweetheart pattern would do just that.

I loved the color of this material the second I laid eyes on it and the bonus was that it was a heftier knit with a great stretch.  I figured if I couldn't make this fabric work, then knits are not for me.

For the dress, I stuck with the size up that I ended up using for the first shirt that I made.  What I didn't realize is that though I have that full bust, I have a narrow waist, so the dress sort of hung in a funny way.

My sister's brilliant suggestion to baste my alterations before I committed to the knit stitch was right on.  I took in the sides where the curves needed to be more defined, but then I found that the skirt was too poofy and I might have created the dreaded jodhpur hips that she mentioned.

So, I cut down the skirt a little too.


My favorite part is how the neckbands and armbands went on. I didn't use a contrasting rib fabric like I did on the shirt.  I was worried that using the same fabric as the dress might not work because maybe it didn't have enough give, but it worked really well.  The topstitching on that makes me so happy because it feels like it was professionally made.

You'd think I might have a picture of that but I didn't and my ipad is currently being used....

So here's another view to keep you thinking.

 Always thinking...
I worked really hard to remove that thing so it wouldn't be in the pictures...  and then it's there anyway.

I also topstitched the waist because I loved how it look.  However, when I put it on , the topstitching popped out because there isn't a whole lot of stretch in the waist.  Sad.   It's a small detail, but I feel like it makes the dress look finished.  I might try to finagle something and do it again.  I have a dress that I bought with a topstitched waist and it's a knit, so I'm sure there's a magical way to do it.

So, while the dress did come out just fine, and it's comfortable and I will probably wear it until it falls apart,
I think my next attempt with knits will be a different pattern.

Kitschycoo has the Lady Skater style that I like a lot because the neckline is lower and it has a real sleeves.

Or, I might mash up a different top with the Comino Cap skirt and really shake things  up.  Then I can participate in callajaire's monthly mashup!

In the meantime, I'll leave you pondering the message I was trying to convey in this picture.

Linking here:
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2014/08/think-pink-sunday-178/

http://www.lovebakesgoodcakes.com/2014/08/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_14.html

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2014/08/clever-chicks-blog-hop-100-with.html

http://www.skiptomylou.org

http://www.adornedfromabove.com/2014/08/wednesdays-adorned-from-above-link_19.html http://www.sewcando.com

4 comments:

  1. Who took those pictures? Haha. I think it looks great! The color is really nice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This came out so cute. I really like the dress. I will have to take a look at the pattern.
    Debi @ Adorned From Above

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is a straight stich that allows a small amount of stretch. It sews one stich and backs up the length of half a stich and puts in a full length of a stich. So all of the seam has a double line of thread (on top of one another to make a slightly thicker line). Test your stich patterns and see if you can find it

    ReplyDelete

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