Swing Dress Sew-Along, conclusion

I finally finished the Swing Dress Sew-Along this weekend with putting in the zipper, tackling those sleeves, hemming, and other finishing touches.

All in all, I am very happy with the experience, as I feel it gave me an idea of how to follow some decent sewing practices. It helped me learn/re-learn some basic techniques but also introduced some more advanced ones. Looking at this dress in its final

state, I feel like I finally have a piece of work that shows some measure of skill and forethought. All of my other projects that I've done over the years have been done more ad hoc. Finishing seams, making a muslin, altering patterns, choosing appropriate fabrics: all of these things were vague, strange concepts that I only glanced at nervously until this project. Going through this project along with more knowledgeable seamstresses online helped me pace myself a bit better and to understand it's worthwhile to restart things as long as the end product is well done.

There still are some things that I feel I have to learn more about, after having done this dress. I realize I have a very limited understanding of fabric and how to look for good fabric choices. I tried to follow the recommendations for types of fabric that would do well with the dress, but chose a very thin cotton lawn that needed underlining. When I went to JoAnn's to buy cotton batiste, I didn't get any help from staff. So, I went by tactile preference on this dress and got some cotton sateen, which makes it feel really good, but perhaps at the cost of a decent draping fabric.

I also did not do the side zipper very well. At this point, I am ready to be finished with the dress, so have no interest in redoing it. It is set into the dress well enough, and I just tidied the overlapping side of the dress placket zipper by adding a second seam. The overlap loses some of the smooth "hidden" look, but I'd rather ensure that the fabric in the seam doesn't get caught in the zipper teeth. If I were to do it again, I'd likely baste the inner seam closer to the zipper, so that it would lie flat closer to the actual seam.

I was able to figure out how to fit the sleeves better. Upon undoing one of the sleeves and reassessing the ease, I only had to take out about an inch to get it to line up better. I have to sew them into the armscyes more slowly, perhaps, as I had gotten random parts of the sleeve caught in the seam multiple times. But, they're decent. I look forward to the day when sleeves are far less work.

The icing on the cake, though, is my antique store brooch find! There were a lot of fun pins, but this one was half the price of the others I was looking at and had the added bonus of the blue accent. As my husband put it, it has just the right blue:yellow:off-white ratio for the dress.

My next major project will be posted about soon! In the meantime, I have to go cut patterns for some other side projects.

Swing Dress Sew-along Sleeve Surprise

Lotsa S's in that title, huh?

Just a small note: I was having trouble getting the sleeves to fit smoothly into the armscye (arm hole). I remeasured them to see if perhaps I had included too much ease, as I was only aiming for 2 inches worth of ease. Upon measuring, I find that I have a 5" ease?!?!?!? Whaaaaat?

Off to find a way to resolve this mismeasure. The bright side is that I now feel better about how ridiculous the ease seemed this first try. I mean, it really was ridiculous!

The Swing Dress Sew-Along

When I decided to resume sewing as hobby, it was only after finding various crafty oriented blogs and following them with far more anticipation than I, well, anticipated.

I loved Grosgrain's Embellishknit Month, in which she would remake thrifted sweaters into new and fun reinterpretations. I also was following various blogs trying to figure out actual techniques or other ways to upcycle clothes. It started to drive home how little I knew about fitting and improvising patterns.

In my searches, I came along the "sew-along" concept, in which a blogger basically walks their audience through making a garment from pattern to finish. When Casey, from Elegant Musings, opted to do her own sew-along, I decided this was my chance. She went with this swing dress pattern from Sense & Sensibility, and has only just gotten to the final posts on finishing touches.

I was able to follow from the beginning, which I think has helped me carry through to these final steps, as others' work helped carry me through. Through this experience, I learned about making a muslin version to fit the pattern to me properly, and how to adjust the pattern to actually fit my wee figure. It's been super helpful!

Had I resumed blogging before, I would have helped you keep track of my progress earlier (that is, if you weren't following me on Facebook). So, you won't get to read me venting about fitting, sewing multiple versions of the same dress, confusion over sleeves that don't behave. Instead, I am just going to post some pics of my almost complete dress. And unlike one would expect from the last post, these pics are pretty sweet. The husband rented a fancy DSLR this weekend, so I was able to get some nice shots of my handiwork. I probably should have color corrected, but I'm lazy, I guess. I mean, did you see the beautiful detail?!?!?