My Uniform Project dress pattern arrived recently, the pattern paper all neatly folded in a little cloth bag with a sheet of directions. The instructions were minimal, so I turned to the U.P. blog for more details. I was in for some surprises. I'm not a professional seamstress, but I have been sewing and watching my mother sew for a long time.
First up: "First, choose your size, or the closest size to what you need ... cut out all your pattern pieces..."
Cut out the pattern to my size? This sounded close to the material sin of cutting a small piece from the center of a large piece of fabric. My mother always folded over the too-big sizes of a pattern when using a small size of a pattern's range. However, she was also sewing for growing girls; she would need those larger sizes -- cutting them off and using them to start the wood stove would have been wasteful!
This pattern is for me, a grown woman. Grown, as in "stopped growing"? Am I really going to stay close to my size? Yikes! I don't worry about this when I buy clothes, but if I am going to go through the trouble of making something, well, that makes me think harder.
Second surprise: "It's best to cut one layer of fabric at a time to keep the cuts accurate."
One layer? No folding over and two-for-one cuts? That's twice as much work! Especially since the laying out, pinning, and cutting is my least favorite part of sewing. Well, running a tie with any parts in the middle of the project that require ironing.
I still haven't decided on a fabric for my U.P. dress, and in the meantime I have two Christmas dresses to finish by December 14 & 15 -- the dates of the Monkeys' school Christmas concerts.
Today I put the extra leaf in the dining table and laid out the fabric for Monkey1's dress. She had requested a pink fleece dress. Yes, pink for Christmas. Everyone else will doubtless be red and green, or maybe gold, and she'll be pink, just like last year. The pattern I selected is simple, only nine pieces to sew together, but she needs the smallest size in the nested tracings of the pattern paper. I started to fold the edges and soon wondered how on earth my mother did this, especially on the curves for the arm holes and sleeves.
I took a deep breath, and I cut the pattern down to its smallest size. But I carefully saved all the pieces, so if necessary I can tape the pattern back together for a larger size!
Spreading out the fleece material, I saw the merit in cutting one layer of fabric at a time. With this thick fuzzy material, one layer was plenty to deal with! So I pinned the pattern, cut, unpinned, repinned, and cut again. Nine pieces. Whew!
Monkey2's dress is a lot more involved. She had requested purple, red, green, and white, with the main color purple. Since these were all the colors she was wearing when I questioned her, I took some liberties with this once I was in the fabric store. The main color is actually green with strings of colored balls in yellow, red, and purple (the fabric print is meant to resemble Christmas ornaments on a green tree). I found matching red and purple material for some accents. Her dress is many pieces; I haven't finished the pinning and cutting, so I don't have a count yet. But with a simple cotton blend fabric, I am definitely folding and cutting once for two pieces! Since her size is the largest size of the pattern, I did not need to agonize over cutting it down. Though this dress looks so involved, I doubt I will want to make it again in a hurry.
Time to put a pink bobbin in the sewing machine.
No comments:
Post a Comment