…and I suck at sewing.

Hi! My name is Nicole and I suck at sewing (and the crappy photography doesn’t help).

Anyway. I was inspired/jealous/peer-pressured/whatever by my knitting friend’s fabulous infinity dress. And I wanted to make one too. So I stopped at Jo-ann’s and bought some knit fabric (polyester, yuk) to make my own.

I was not as successful and I would have hoped. The dress involves ONE seam. One. Sewed. Seam. And I couldn’t even get it right. Here’s my timeline of the project (not a recommended avenue for your own dress):

1. Cut straps. Say to self “there’s tons of extra fabric at the end. I’ll be able to make a skirt, no problem.
2. Cut waist band. Wish really hard that there was some sort of direction in the “recipe” for how thick the waistband should be (clearly, my first attempt, 4 inches was too wide). Otherwise, the recipe was very helpful.
3. Hold up the remaining rectangle shape. Think to self “Hmm. this is going to be a short skirt. This might be a problem.” Consider the possibility that the other large chunk of “leftovers” might be the skirt section and then dismiss this possibility upon closer examination. Decide to continue without serious concern.
4. Make the rectangle more rounded, hoping to preserve as much length as possible. Decide that instead of cutting a hole in the skirt, a slit would preserve the most length in all directions. Cut a slit large enough to go around hips.
5. Step into skirt (to make sure the slit is wide enough) and consider again the fact that this is turning out to be a bit risque.
6. Remember Huan-Hua’s advice and attempt to pin all the pieces together, all the way around the waist.
7. Begin sewing. Curse the long straps (that get in the way). Have general frustration.
8. Finish the seam, hold up the dress, right side facing… and see 3 giant spaces where the seam did not go where it was supposed to and there are giant gaps.
9. Attempt 8 times (or so) to close these gaps, in the process shortening the skirt by milimeters each time. Finally decide that 2 of these gaps are now small enough that they are not important, particularly when the straps can be wrapped such that the seams essentially disappear.
10. Try on dress, realize that it shows a LOT of leg. Like a lot. Also realize that I may be a bit too… busty to wear the dress low enough to cover leg without sacrificing support and side coverage.
11. “Grrr.”
12. Decide to call it a learning experience and not obsess, move on to next project.
13. Just before closing out the firefox tab of the recipe, read that this dress could be worn as a top. Genius.
14. Decide that next time, I will make the straps wider (for less revealing side boobage) and double check the width of the fabric before I buy so that I can be sure the skirt will be long enough.

Here’s another photo, this time of the back.

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