NewLook 6828

OK... so I just finished the hem on this dress. This is the second project I worked on this week. I have not worked with knits in a long while so this was sort of a refresher for me. The fabric is a gray rayon jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics.

I do not own a serger. Well that's not exactly true. I purchased a Singer serger from ebay a couple of years ago and have never been able to use it properly. Don't know if it's the serger or my inability to use it. So I made this all with my conventional Bernina 240. The dress took about 3 hours to make. But really it would have been faster with a serger. I sewed all the seams with a straight stitch; cut them down to 1/4 inch; then went back over them with the overlock feature on my Bernina.

I forgot what a pain doing hems on knits can be. At first I sewed down the hem with a straight stitch. However, I didn't stabilize or interface the knit at all. The end result was very homely looking. So I took the hem out and sewed it by hand which was much smoother looking. Next time will interface the hem first.

A note on the pattern sizing... my measurements corrospond to a size 18. However, according to the envelope there is five inches of ease in the bust which was not the look I was going for. I went down to a size 14 which, in my opinion, looks great. Also, the dress screams for a belt- otherwise it is very much shapeless. I used the tie belt pattern pictured with the sleeveless top.




The cat wanted to make an appearance. Sorry for the dark circles under my eyes in the picture- my makeup had run during the day.

Until next time... Byrdie~