An Experimental Myrtle

Anyone else having one of those weeks? Work’s been mad busy and I’m exhausted from the run up to exam season. I’m seriously craving half term! When I have found time to squeeze in a bit of sewing, it’s been pretty disappointing 😦 First there was the ho-hum top, then an awful blouse failure that I can’t even bring myself to blog about and now this…

Despite its failures (I just couldn’t bring myself to try it on for photos and I’m seriously photo-ed out from MMMay), I think I’ve learnt a lot from the process. The pattern in question is Colette’s Myrtle, one of their beginner patterns ‘designed for knits’. I’ve been determined to rid myself of some of my early-fabric-purchase-mistakes for knits that have been clogging up my sewing drawers for far too long now. I didn’t have enough of either of these fabrics for a whole dress, so I thought I’d attempt a mash-up of the two, knowing full well that the weights were a little ‘off’: the striped fabric being a lightweight knit and the darker fabric being a much heavier, thick jersey (?). To be honest it was only ever going to be a wearable muslin, so it’s no great disaster but frustrating all the same…

As usual, Colette’s instruction booklet was really clear and helpful. I chose version 1, the longer version without the shoulder tabs. After a couple of projects coming up a little small of late, I opted for a size S, rather than an XS. Seeing as I was experimenting anyway, I thought I might as well be a bit braver with my overlocker too. It gets a little tiresome switching between two machines, so I thought I’d challenge myself to see if I could just use my overlocker for this.

I started by overlocking every edge of the pattern pieces. I knew some of this was going to be cut off later, but couldn’t quite work out which, so just did the whole lot, which did look lovely regardless. My first problem was hemming the neckline and armholes. I did cover sewing hems on the course I went on, but to be honest I was so busy getting the basics right, that my concentration had gone by then. I did have notes for a rolled hem though (presumably for sheer fabrics), so I decided to give that a go. I bravely, gulp, cut one of the threads and experimented on some scraps with just three threads. It wasn’t perfect, but did the job. You can just about make out the results in the picture, above right. It’s ok-ish… Anyone have any better ideas for how to do a normal hem on an overlocker?

Putting the bodice together was a little tricky, but worth it for a very pleasing fully-lined front. This was such a better way of finishing a cowl neck than the top I made recently. I managed to rethread the overlocker pretty easily (hurrah, it does get easier) to stitch the bodice up. But then it came to the pockets and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do this, so out came my regular machine. This is only the second time I’ve made pockets, but I was pretty pleased with how they turned out using a small, neat, zigzag stitch on my machine. The skirt was easy to put together as was attaching it to the bodice, but then came the elasticated waist…

Granted, I should have checked the accompanying link to a video tutorial recommended, but the kids had my iPad at the time, so I thought I’d wing it. The result was, quite frankly, a mess! While I understood the construction, it was my uneven sewing that really let me down. I managed to make really uneven pleats and then stupidly top stitched before I realised. This coupled with the fact that I was using a contrast, cream thread resulted in a complete bodge-up. Seriously, all-in-all this was a pretty ugly make. Ughhh!

The next morning I was determined to at least attempt to fix it. Firstly I removed the pockets, pretty though they were sewn (I did get something right), they were just too bulky in this fabric and really weren’t doing me any favours. I then attempted to unpick the waist. To cut a long story short, many holes and much swearing later this ended up in the bin. In my defence this is the first time I’ve totally hated a project. But there were just too many problems to fix…

Come on, make me feel better: what’s caused you to turn the air blue before being unceremoniously dumped in the bin?

So three dud-projects under my belt, surely the only way on from here is upwards? I sincerely hope so, as I’m about to attempt a jumpsuit: what could possibly go wrong there? 😉 #jumpforjune