What can be done with less than a yard of knit fabric in a wild 70s design?
I fell in love with this fabric the second I saw it and I didn't care if I didn't have a clue what to do with it. I mulled over the question for a very long time. A dress, a t-shirt, a skirt, cushion covers? I kind of knew it had to be a dress, a 70s mini-dress. But I also knew that the 70s is not having a fashion moment right now. In fact, it seems as though every decade since the first world war is having a fashion moment, but not the 70s (ok, not the 90s either). Homewares, yes, but not clothing.
I was going to try a short sleeve version of my New Look pattern that I used for this dress. Then a trip to the beach at the end of the summer gave me the answer. I saw someone wearing a beach dress with shirring through the bust and thought this style would be perfect for my fabric.
I sewed the selvedges together (why doesn't the pattern repeat match at the selvedge?), then hand stitched a hem at the top and the bottom. Knit fabric is lovely to wear but it is a pain, pain, pain to sew with. I sewed through paper and the needle still bounced so much that I went over my seams again by hand.
Unfortunately, I also couldn't get the shirring to work properly. It shirred beautifully but came up so tight that I couldn't get the dress on. I am not sure if I was doing it wrong, or my machine tension was wrong, I'll have to try harder to find an solution next time.
Instead of shirring, I took two pieces of 3/4 - 1cm wide elastic and sewed them, at full stretch, to the over and under-bust with a zig zag stitch. The knit is very thin and soft so the gathers fall beautifully. The elastic gave enough weight to the fabric to stop the stitches from bouncing.
I used the selvedge offcuts to make tie straps to make the dress more secure.
Final verdict: it's fine for the one day a year when I'm melting in the heat but I am a bit put off tackling the rest of my knit stash.
Fabric for this dress cost £5.13
ReplyDelete+ elastic for shirring