Hi everyone,
I hope it's been a peaceful and joyful week for you and yours whether you celebrate Christmas or not.
I'm a bit peeved because I got too very very extremely great sewing toys for Christmas and they've both got flaws which mean I have to wait til replacement parts arrive before I can play with them. So frustrating! I got a dress form which had a crack in the wood of its stand column and an overlocker whose blade snapped on first use! The dress form's issue totally not my fault, but I think I may have got a stray pin under the overlocker blade...Anyway, sigh, at least both things can be replaced.
So, back to the Top 5 series. I started with my Top 5 Hits- nice to begin with a positive right? So, here are my Top 5 Misses. I'm reversing my previous Top 5 post's order and starting with my biggest disappointment (whereas with my hits I worked my way up to my favourite make)- you'll see why. Bear in mind this is my second year of sewing, so although I may not think anything I make is perfect I've hardly hated anything so much I've never worn it- and it's all learning, right? However, here is something I've never worn:
Ultimate Trousers
Still. Can't. Get. These. Right! They should be so simple! So cute! But they do me no favours at all. I don't even know where to start to make these look anywhere decent on me so I may just chalk it up to experience. I liked my pattern and print matching of the muslin I was working on (as I often do- following my dream even when I know already that its doomed) so did the work to finish these off properly, but to no avail. They pull in weird areas, the waistband is all distorted, so unflattering in every way. Annoying as I would love a really plain pair of black trousers and thought this pattern would fit the bill, but there's much work to do to have them fit my shape.
Lady Pencil Dress
I knew this was a failure even when I posted it- the clue is in the name 'Hackety-Hash'! The bodice is too long and too tight, the skirt is too short and has the weird upwards curve at the front due to some in-progress style changes when I realised I'd cut two left panels of the original back skirt (this was supposed to be a straight-up Lady Skater)...I have worn this, but probably shouldn't. If there's a long torsoed person out there with great legs I hope they find whatever charity shop I donate this to.
New Look 6144
I really like this dress- from the front! Maybe I can fix it? The back bodice is just massive on me, exacerbated by the fact that I insisted on inserting an exposed zip (4 tries people!) which has of course added another 1/2" width to my back troubles. I do love the neckline and the shift-like feel to this dress, so might pluck up the courage to do some work on fixing it in the new year. Hopefully once my dress form is up and running this will help with back adjustments somewhat.
Gertie Sews Vintage Casual Sweetheart Top (and to a lesser extent Easy Knit Pencil Skirt)
The skirt was also in my hits, but the whole outfit kind of has to be categorised as a miss because unfortunately it was made in the wrong fabric. This was me not realising at the time that sweater knit and sweatshirting are very different fabrics, and so buying the wrong badger for the job. I think it's a UK vs US English thing- for me, I think of a sweater as a sweatshirt- I just thought it was a different way of saying the same thing! If Gertie had called for 'jumper knit' I would have had a better idea of what kind of fabric to go for, but in US English a jumper is a pinafore dress. I hope I'm not the only person to have made this mistake! So anyway, this pattern comes up in a very tight fit with sweatshirting, so not really a great end result.
I don't really have any more outright misses- I mentioned in my hits post that a few of the garments I'd made had a less-than-perfect fit- such as the Mimi Blouse and Ginger Jeans, and I know I want to make at least one more Anna and Elisalex dress but am grimly aware that there's work to be done on the bodice for both. My Clemence Skirt isn't great- it was a bit of a rushed job and the waistband is messy and the hem's not level, but I do wear it quite a bit and inserted my first ever invisible zip with it so I don't want to condemn it too much!
I hope you won't think it's cheating not to have too much to showcase for my misses. I guess I can also say that I missed a few of my sewing targets for 2015, but I always knew they were massively ambitious! Was it 36 garments? I made 19 in the end, 20 if you count finishing off the Ultimate Trousers. Anyway, I'll have more to say about that in my Reflections and Goals post!
Thanks for reading- I hope your 2015 has gone well and that you're looking forward to an even better year in 2016!
NorseOtter xxx
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