Wednesday, February 22, 2012

7051/7501 Grand Finale!

Well, the most important item on today's post is, of course, our cat, Bella, who likes the new layout in the sewing room.  She immediately found an empty drawer to hide in and looked adorable.

And the next item is the 7501/7051 dress!  Finally...por fin!  If you remember the beginning of this saga was Scruffy Badger's blog about 7051 way back in October (2011!).  I thought, "I MUST have that, too!" And got online & bought a very large 7501, thinking, well, I can size it down.  Not realizing that I was buying the wrong pattern, being old & forgetful & when I got it into my hot little hands I quickly realized, "Uh oh!"  I'd transposed the numbers & bought the wrong pattern on ebay.  So I set about trying and trying and trying to turn the too big wrong pattern into the just right 7501.  (Can I just say here that after getting me started SB still has NOT made her version--and she has the right pattern & started all this?)

I then decided to use my new dress form & lots of extra pieces from my stash & leftover bits to try to make a toile.  I made 4 eventually and cut & sewed & stitched & restitched & and put in darts & moved them & resized them and ripped out stitches & did it again & again & again.  I won't go into the rest of the story (which involves canibalizing another pattern that does fit & then changing the neckline & sleeves).

But at least you can see that it's finished.  I wore it to work today & got lots of compliments! It goes especially well with all my turqouise jewelry.  It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

I'm not dumb enough to think that pattern making or alteration is easy, but I had no idea how hard it was...I just kept feeling like I'd get it--but I really never did.  Another thing is that unlike the Slenderette/Simplicity 2847, this one rolls back on my shoulders.  That is a problem I often have with tops & dresses I buy readymade, but I've never had it happen with a dress either I made, or Mohammed made.  So that's a bit weird.

Hopefully some of these questions will be answered as I take some classes at Bits of Thread & online with Gertie.


3 comments:

  1. Double congrats! Your sewing station looks enviably clear and well thought out. great colour walls too. And the dress? Fantastic, beautifully cheery fabric- its wonderful and I think worth the trials you've had with it. Love the style! And nope. Still not started mine- still not clear about fabric and don't have anything suitable!

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  2. Thanks, SBT! I have more corduroy fabric (purple) and am trying to figure out how to do another dress, without all the tribulation! It's practically spring here, so I may put it off a bit.

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  3. That looks great! I am so glad you persevered with the dress, wonderful when something finally works out!
    I really like the belt and its colour, it looks lovely with the dress.

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