This might just win "comfiest dress in the world" award. It hits the perfect balance of being loose yet has enough shape to not fall into bag lady or nightie territory. It's made from gorgeously thick, soft, orangic interlock knit. It's stripey. Aaaand it has pockets. I need one in every colour, please.
However I think I can easily hand myself "idiot of the year" award for the making of this dress. I don't know why, but cutting the pieces out and getting the stripes to match was SO DAMN HARD. I even cut on the flat to ensure my stripes didn't shift, yet they still looked wonky! Figuring out whether it was possible to make the sleeves stripes match the dress stripes almost made my head implode. What should have taken no more than an hour took most of an afternoon.
(Eventually) matching stripes, like a boss!
I think the main problem stemmed from being overly tired at the time, but I'd also like to blame the prewashing of the fabric. There were definitely areas in my fabric, the edges especially, which stretched significantly so some of the stripes were reluctant to match up. I'm starting to think that unless I block the fabric flat, like you would with a knitted garment, it's going to stretch. Grrrrr.
I was worried I might need a swayback adjustment, but I think the fit is fine. Wooh!
Idiot moment number two was staystitching the neckline incorrectly. I don't know what possessed me, but I just sewed from one shoulder to the other on both pieces(!!) before remembering that is not how you staystitch, so I unpicked it and did it correctly. Thankfully I don't think my blunder stretched the neckline out of shape.
Idiot moment number three was sewing the first pocket on sideways. A definite facepalm moment. Stupidity, like good things, must come in threes. So I unpicked that too. I highly doubt sideways pocket are an up and coming trend.
Now for the intential adjustments. I cut a size 3 and made the following alterations:
- 1/4" round upper back adjustment
- shortened the sleeves to match those on my Emery dress
- made the pockets at least an 1" bigger (for my big man hands?)
- added 2" in length for my height (I'm almost 5ft 8")
I'm getting braver at overlocking closer to my main stitching line!
Despite my blunders I absolutely LOVE this dress and suspect it will get worn to pieces. I'm even willing to go through the trauma of cutting and matching stripes all over again to have another stripey coco in rotation!
