Love At First Stitch: Megan Dress

Gulp! This was the first time I had to trace off a pattern! I followed Tilly's favourite method of using a tracing wheel which worked well until I had to get my yellow carbon paper to show up!

After getting all my bits cut out I did my usual thing of thinking that my garment was going to be too big and played it close to the edge with the seam allowances. As I result I had to change the angle of the shoulder seams but that seemed to go okay.
This was the first item I'd put some proper dars into, which was a bit scary, I didn't want my boobs to look dodgy! Without paying enough attention to the instructions I rushed into putting my darts in and sewed them on the wrong side! What a fool! I soon learned to take my time with it though and was much more careful with the rest of the seams.

When it came to putting in the zip, I had quite a bit of left over fabric (But hey, over-estimating is better than under-estimating right?) so turned under quite a bit of fabric when pinning in the zip. I got it fitting quite snugly until I re-read the instructions and found it was meant to be a CONCEALED zip, not a normal zip. Then after going out to buy a concealed zip I read I needed a concealed zip foot for my machine... and then also a standard zip foot! I didn't really mind spending money on these though as I knew they were things I was going to hopefully be using time after time again. And it made for a great result on on dress! the zip is completely concealed! Yay!

I was a bit of a wimp when it came to doing the neckline-facing the way Tilly suggested in her book. After getting on so well with bias-binding on my past projects I decided I would make quite a thick neck out of the same fabric as the skirt. Stupidly I didn't really consider how much taller it would make the dress and the back and as a result meant that I should have put the zip in a little higher. Not to worry though, I made do with a sneaky hook and eye to stop my neck flapping around. The neckband I sewed in also has a tendency to pull at the bodice on one shoulder a bit, but once I've had the dress on for a little while it seems to settle onto my body a bit better.

I learned loads and gained a lot of confidence from making the Megan Dress. So far I've worn it out to dinner with friends who couldn't believe I'd made it and also on a Saturday night date :-)

Tx

Currently listening to: 'Above As Below' Nicole Atkins