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Tuesday 18 November 2008

Dress Disaster!

I had such high hopes for this dress while making it and I feel so stupid for not spotting the glaring error earlier. I was making the popular Vogue wrap dress, 8379 in some (admittedly loud) print jersey, really nice fabric.

Here is a picture of the fabric.



Here is a picture of the back of the incomplete dress. So far so good. Now this is a pretty random geometric print and I only just managed to cut all the pattern pieces with the fabric I had - other than cutting the back skirt on the fold in place of a seam, I didn't think about layout at all.



Well I should have. Here is the sad state of the front of the dress - seriously I could not have placed those white bands there if I had tried! It looks even more noticeable on me than on the dressform. The fabric is too good to waste so I'm going to ditch the top and turn it into a skirt, hopefully I will manage not to mess that up.

14 comments:

  1. I love the fabric, how annoying of it to just do that spontaneously! I just managed to use 3metres of batik print to make a top requiring 1.2m just so there would not be some bird or huge flower in the wrong spot, layout is a real pain sometimes.

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  2. Well give yourself much credit for recognizing this error and having the style sense to abort the project. I supposed it could have worked if one was very small-busted, right? Your dressform looks like Mrs. Doubtfire. Tee hee hee. I'm glad I'm not the only one who makes mistakes like this.

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  3. Is it really that bad? I didn't think it was bad. Maybe, being a micro-busted gal, I don't "see" things the same way. I guess I would love any attention on the bust area.

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  4. Hmmm. It doesn't look too bad to me either. Of course, I would probably wear a sweater over it anyway as I'm *always* cold. My opinion aside, you are the one who has to wear it and be comfortable with it. Good for you for not wearing something you're uncomfortable with and for finding another use for it.

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  5. I think it's wearable. When I was scrolling down I really expected something obvious and I actually love the vertical swoosh on the right side. But if you don't feel comfortable...

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  6. I'm another one who thinks it looks fine (yes I'm another small busted one). But I take your word for it that it looks worse on. It is funny that it worked out that way! I don't suppose you could cross the top over the other way? That might look better.

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  7. ROTFLOL! Yeah that is going to make a wonderful skirt!

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  8. I wouldn't discard the top just yet, because it it otherwise a pretty dress. I think it is salvageable. If you have any scraps of the fabric left that are large enough to piece the right front and exchange the big white part. You know, just divide the front piece any which way into three or so pieces, diagonally, and replace the piece with the biggest white chunk. The way the pattern of the fabric goes, I think you'd get away with it perfectly. And if you don't have enough scrap of the same fabric, maybe you find one that blends. And if necessary, add some sleeve cuffs for balance. It's worth a try.

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  9. honestly I don't think it looks bad; the print is beautiful and you'll get the same effect on other areas of the dress. But if it doesn't feel right with the dress on, I agree that you should try saving it into a skirt. But I'd give it a try first... I'd wear the dress for a day or two and then decide.

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  10. I agree that you should give it a couple days before taking the scissors to it. Since the swooshes on the two halves of the bust go different directions I think it's not so obvious as you think. But, like others, I have a microbust (lol, love that one) and it would be hard to draw any attention to my bust even with big targets and arrows.

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  11. Echoing the others, I don't think it looks bad at all, didn't even notice it till you pointed it out.

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  12. It is a gorgeous fabric. Why don't you just wear it? It really doesn't look as bad as you think.

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  13. I think that you have already taken scissors to this dress. I am late reading blogs. I can appreciate not wanting to wear this to accent your attributes. Years ago it would not have mattered to me but now that I am older and larger,these things become more noticeable. I love the fabric and turning it into a skirt is a great way to salvage a beautiful knit. And I have done what you did also so you have to do this at least once or twice in my case.

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  14. Thank you for sharing this unfortunate pattern incident with us. As a relatively large-busted gal who is new to sewing, I'll definitely keep this in mind when cutting out patterns in the future! Did you have enough fabric to perhaps replace the two front pieces? It's really a beautiful pattern, and will no doubt make a lovely skirt.
    MNStitch.com

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