After despairing for the umpteenth time at the growing clutter in our spare room, where I keep my sewing paraphernalia (although I actually sew on the kitchen table, as the light’s so much better), I have categorically banned myself from buying any new fabric until I use up / sort out what I’ve already got 😦 Not as much fun, but unless you have a dedicated sewing room, I wish, I suspect this is an all too familiar problem for us all? Although maybe a better storage system would help too…
First up was this striped fabric left over from my second Coco top, see here. Not really sure why I bought so much in the first place, but it’s a good neutral. I spied that Tilly had run up a pretty Megan dress in a knit, so this seemed the ideal solution. And because of the short sleeves, I just about had enough.
The first half of this sewed up a dream in one afternoon. The second half, inserting the invisible zip, was a pain in the backside! Not sure why, I’ve inserted many a successful invisible zip before… Eventually it went in, after some serious unpicking, and with a knit fabric that wasn’t that easy. But I could not for the life of me match up my waist seams at the back. I’m suspecting it had something to do with cutting the fabric out. Knits do tend to move around a fair bit, especially for larger pieces. Maybe a rotary cutter and board would help with this? Not sure.
As I’d intended this dress for casual use anyway, I’m guessing no one will really be looking too closely. And with a jacket on, it looks just fine. It was also a toss up between a size 2 and a size 3. I went for a 3, but it’s ended up a little on the loose side. Again, the jacket helps. If I run another of these up in a knit, I’d definetly go for the smaller size next time, but maybe the bigger if I do it in a cotton. Overall, it’s, yet again, a really flattering shape, even in a size too big, and I’m really pleased with it 🙂
And lastly here’s our cat, Mr Jinks, ‘helping’ with tracing out the pattern…
Very cute, but really not a fat lot of help Mr Jinks!
The Megan Dress from Tilly’s ‘Love At First Stitch’
navybluethreads 