My Most Stressful Sewing Project Yet

Hello everyone, I’m so proud of myself with this particular dress I’m about to share with you all. I started this dress about a month ago and I fell ill. I wasn’t having the energy to work on it for a while and I didn’t want anyone to work on it for me. It took me so many days to even do the cutting because I didn’t want to make any mistake.

Before I made the dress, my plan was to make something I could wear for my upcoming Christmas dinner. I wanted to make something I’ve been wanting to buy for almost a year now but after I started learning how to sew, I decided to make it myself. I was very excited but also confused when I began working on it. I remember being very lost when I started cutting so I texted @rayoo for insights.

The initial design was just one shoulder dress but I wanted something more sophisticated so I included a scarf. I used 2 yards of fabric and linen for this dress, and as I said earlier, I spent about a month trying have a perfect result.

I started by drafting the pattern on the fabric. I didn’t really know how go about the one shoulder so I used the normal dress with no sleeves pattern. After that, I cut from one side of the neck to the arm hole off to get what I wanted.

I then cut the linen and then began sewing it to the fabric but unfortunately, it wasn’t long enough to cover everything so I had to cut the below knees part off.

I then sewed the front and back together, leaving the zip line so that I can attach the zipper. I got the shaping so wrong and I had to keep on unpicking about three times before I could eventually do the right shaping.

I really thought I could use any type of zipper for this dress but I was wrong. The zipper I used was too big so I went the fabric shop and I was told I would have to use invisible zipper for the dress.
I used the invisible zipper for the dress and the first time I tried, I failed. I couldn’t even close the zipper so I had to redo it for about 5 times before I could do the right thing.

I then moved on to the scarf. That was when I realized I had to fix the scarf before sewing the shoulder part so I unpicked the shoulder and the fixed the scarf. Before fixing the scarf, I made sure to secure the ends to avoid any fraying.

Gallery

It was very stressful making this dress because I did a lot of unpicking, made so many measurements mistakes, couldn’t eveb understand what I was doing at one point and on top of everything, I was recovering from an ailment. At some point I almost gave up but when I remembered I had to finish it for my Christmas dinner, I went back to it.

This was definitely the most difficult sewing project I’ve ever worked on this year. The fabric wasn’t so cooperative at all. I’m glad my mom kept on encouraging me throughout. I can’t wait to wear this dress for the dinner soon. Thank you for your time.

Images are mine