B&W Stripe Jersey Molly Dress

This fabric is an interesting knit. It is a thin, black jersey with stripes of thicker white and grey jersey laid over the top. The stripes make actual tunnels because they are secured at the top and bottom of each stripe, but not in the middle. It gives a nice texture to the fabric, and makes it much weightier than the lightweight jersey underneath.

I bought 1.5m of it, with a Walkely Dress in mind. This pattern was attached to one of my Simply Sewing magazines, and is a simple knit shift, which they have belted for shaping. I am still interested in making this dress, but I need a stable knit, probably with a random geometric pattern, in a neutral colour scheme. 

All this being a long way of saying that I didn't make the intended pattern with this fabric. I have a RTW stripe dress with short sleeves, so I didn't really need two. I turned to the Molly Dress pattern from Sew Over It, but the fabric requirements are over two meters. 

I am so confused about fabric requirements. My 1.5m x 1.5m piece was plenty for the Molly, with leftovers to spare. I lie my pattern pieces upside down from one another and the pattern pieces fit in nicely, with the sleeve pieces fitting in underneath. Even with moving things about to be careful about stripe matching. 

I have cut the Molly pattern down to a size 8 to account for me not using the seam allowance with my overlocker. I like to keep the fabric running at the very edge, so the knife does almost no cutting. I find this gives me a lot better control than trying to hit a 1.5cm seam allowance with a knit fabric floating in the air. I found my previous Molly tops to be very spacious and I didn't think a stripe with some body would be the right sort of fabric with which to make a spacious dress.

After I put the dress together and tried it on, it still came up very large. I am, by no means, teeny tiny but even a size 8 seemed huge to me. I don't want negative ease, but this style should skim the body. I put the dress on inside out and pinned away the side seam ease. Almost an inch on either side, that's 4 inches of ease removed. I also took some ease out of the top of the shoulder. 

I struggled to match the stripes properly. The shoulder seams were the worst. I think parts of the fabric had stretched out so the front shoulder seams needed to be gathered into the back shoulder seams to get the stripes to match up. This means that my neckline is much wider than I wanted. I had to choose between having the seams match up, with the stripes not matching, or have the stripes touching and the front end almost an inch before the edge. I chose the stripes because that top of the shoulder seam is so big and so prominent that it would have been very jarring to have them not match.

Matching the stripes through the straight sides was much easier, especially the sleeves. But I still got one side wrong. I think my overlocker presser foot pressure was set too high and it was feeding the two layers unevenly.

I added about 2 inches to the length of the dress, but I took it all away, plus a bit extra. I think it is better to wear this on the short side, with tights, and give the eye a break from all the stripes.

I cut the neckband on the horizontal stripe. I find the vertical stripes too jarring, especially with the two-directional stripe on the sleeve. Conservative is my middle name here! I attached it with as much fabric as I could, in an effort to make the neckline fit tighter. But it is doing the funny, sitting-up-at-the-sides thing, and those sides are very wide indeed.

Having a pattern go badly is always the reason I lose my sewjo. I often feel like not finishing, or just stopping sewing all together. Lucily, this was quick to finish, and even quicker to get a pencil skirt out of the leftovers!

I am not really very happy with this dress. It seems like a tent on me, and I don't really have the figure to wear a body-con / stripe dress. Perhaps I should shorten it into a top? It would be a stunning dress on a skinny teenager. I can't see myself reaching for this of a morning. #fail

Costs: 
 Fabric: Fabricana, £12.76 
 Pattern: Sew Over It, used previously £0
 Notions: none
Total: £12.76 + a new skirt