Progress.
The sleeves were tricky because they have three sewn-in darts in the sleeve caps, so you have to get the darts the right size that the sleeve fits into the armscye. I pinned and fit the sleeve into the armsyce first, then basted the darts, and then sewed everything "for real." Worked very well.
I'm down to the buttons, buttonholes (aack), and hem.
Okay, confession: I absolutely hate doing buttonholes. My sewing machine doesn't do them well so it's better to do them by hand, but I don't like doing them at all, so I inevitably do them by hand . . . poorly. The state of things is not helped by my chronic underuse of fusible interfacing, either. The facings of this dress are interfaced, luckily, which should help a lot.
I've made repeated resolutions to be a more careful and disciplined seamstress, with varying degrees of success. Seam finishing totally stuck: I will never leave a seam unfinished again and I'm totally irritated with my older dresses that are only topstitched but don't have the allowances turned under, and which frayed as a result. Aargh!
Neatly-done buttonholes, however, haven't stuck yet. It's ridiculous, really, since buttonholes are the kind of thing that I think I would very much like to do well, and at which I suspect I'd be pretty good if I could make myself do them enough to get a little practice.
I'm waffling on this dress: I could do buttonholes all the way down, or I could do buttnholes only to the waist, and use nonfunctional buttons to tack the lower skirt closed. Nonfunctional buttons seem like cheating but they would hold the dress closed better (dresses and skirts that button all the way down, in my experience, are at risk for opening and inopportune moments if you snag them on something or twist the wrong way). Functional buttons all the way might pop open but seem less like cutting corners. Hmm.
I'm not quite decided on the button color, either. I had originally planned all green, but I might put a red button on the neck facing.
The sleeves were tricky because they have three sewn-in darts in the sleeve caps, so you have to get the darts the right size that the sleeve fits into the armscye. I pinned and fit the sleeve into the armsyce first, then basted the darts, and then sewed everything "for real." Worked very well.
I'm down to the buttons, buttonholes (aack), and hem.
Okay, confession: I absolutely hate doing buttonholes. My sewing machine doesn't do them well so it's better to do them by hand, but I don't like doing them at all, so I inevitably do them by hand . . . poorly. The state of things is not helped by my chronic underuse of fusible interfacing, either. The facings of this dress are interfaced, luckily, which should help a lot.
I've made repeated resolutions to be a more careful and disciplined seamstress, with varying degrees of success. Seam finishing totally stuck: I will never leave a seam unfinished again and I'm totally irritated with my older dresses that are only topstitched but don't have the allowances turned under, and which frayed as a result. Aargh!
Neatly-done buttonholes, however, haven't stuck yet. It's ridiculous, really, since buttonholes are the kind of thing that I think I would very much like to do well, and at which I suspect I'd be pretty good if I could make myself do them enough to get a little practice.
I'm waffling on this dress: I could do buttonholes all the way down, or I could do buttnholes only to the waist, and use nonfunctional buttons to tack the lower skirt closed. Nonfunctional buttons seem like cheating but they would hold the dress closed better (dresses and skirts that button all the way down, in my experience, are at risk for opening and inopportune moments if you snag them on something or twist the wrong way). Functional buttons all the way might pop open but seem less like cutting corners. Hmm.
I'm not quite decided on the button color, either. I had originally planned all green, but I might put a red button on the neck facing.
Comments