70s Aztec Knit Dress

I made this on a whim and it has turned out to be a winner - whim to win!

I ordered a meter of this fabric on eBay and I was delighted with it.  The colours are fabulous, the knit is soft but not thin, it washed like a dream and has no static.  De-LIGHT-ed!   It sat in my shopping basket for about a month and I'm so glad I hit "Buy".

I've had my eye out for a patterned fabric, I wanted to make view A from the pattern for a while.  The illustration is in a print and I am not terribly imaginative.  The pattern calls for a contrast hem, a contrast neckline would be nice too, but I was not about to go about fabric matching online so I made the whole dress from the same pattern.  My 1m order generously came out at 1.25m so, with 150cm width, I had enough for what I needed and (mainly) matched the pattern.

The biggest issue I had was skipping stitches.  I believe it helped to go as slow as possible so the fabric didn't bounce on its way through the dog feet.  Sewing slowly was a real challenge.  I'm not super fast but I was going as slowly as the needle would move.  I also didn't do any kind of zig-zag.  My machine doesn't have a lot of stitch options and my basic zig zag was causing the most bounce so I just stuck to a straight stitch.  This was a problem on the hem in particular, which has already broken.  Perhaps also due to the 100% cotton thread I used. I was rushing to finish it in time for our holiday so I machine hemmed the sleeves and the hem.  I might go back and hand stitch these hems - it will hopefully give them a bit of extra stretch too.

The pattern is the other one that I purchased for the navy spot sundress and I knew I would be using it before too long.

I took 1.5cm off both the side seams and the sleeve seams.  I need to figure out how to do this without reducing the armscye.  There I was, sitting in my underwear, 45 minutes before the taxi was arriving to take us to the airport, frantically going as slowly as I could, reducing the seams for a better fit.  Don't tell me I am the only sewer who had ever done that!  I was so pleased I reduced the fit, especially with a knit, less ease makes it look so much better.

Other fitting notes/changes: I made size 12 all over, eliminated the zip (and have plenty of space to pull it over my head), took out back seam (and seam allowance), raised the waist by 2ins (should have done the whole 3), shortened the back darts by a lot to eliminate the ballooning at the back (raising the waist more will help with this) and lengthened the hem.  I skipped the elastic on the sleeves.

Costs:

Fabric: £4.84

Tools: ballpoint needle: £5.45

Pattern: £7.67

Total: £17.96

Rating: 9.75 out of 10.  I really love this dress.

Here's me, being delighted, on the way to the airport!