From Triumphs to Children's Scissors

Hang on! Before you get all 'I thought from now on we were going to see all new creations in action?!' and go and check out someone elses blog, give me the chance to explain. I'll admit, it looks hot on the mannequin, but despite appearences, this recent bane of my sewing life is unwearble, at least at the moment.

It began life as a fortuitous find. On the way to (evil) Ikea, we perchanced upon one of the rare-as-a-unicorn charity shops here in bcn, and what-do-you-know? They were having a sale: everything one euro! (I apologise if you are able to read Catalan and you feel I've just insulted your linguistic skils). The shop must have scooped up some surplus stock from somewhere, resulting in an abundance of totally unused 1970's mens clothing. Now this got my heart racing as, although most was of limited appeal, you NEVER see fresh vintage in charity shops in the UK these days. The shop assistants and the public are just too clued up and know they can make more cash selling it elsewhere, or too stupid and it ends up in the bin (don't even think about it, it'll give you nightmares).

So anyway, I picked up this tasty box-fresh shirt, and rocked up to Ikea (I know I know, I was only there for the herring) and found some complimentary blue cotton for €2 a metre. A plan was hatched, and the application of the Burdastyle 'Coffee Date Dress' pattern ensued.

Agh!!!!!!! Now, I don't really want to speak ill of this pattern, as a very generous member of Burdastyle drafted it herself and took the time to grade it and upload for other members. As usual, my impatience prevented me from making a toile first, so when the flaws in fit began to reveal themselves like an unrolling carpet, I ended up pretty much restitching every seam at least once.

Now, it could be argued that it's my body's fault for not being the correct shape, but despite it's various flaws, my figure does have pretty standard proportions. I'll give it that. The Coffee Date Dress pattern was initially designed for petite sizes, but due to popular demand the designer graded it to 'normal' sizes. I may be alone in saying this but however I think many of the issues of proportion that such an endeavour raises were not properly addressed. All I'm sayin. For example, the bust point ended up way too high, and the waistline (which my fabric combo really emphasised) was neither waisted nor empire line, resulting in my fashioning an extra waist band, which in turn threw the garment's balance off entirely. Then I noticed the back neck gapped in a bizarre way, which I corrected with darts which then effected the facings etc, etc, etc, blah, blah...

Well, the beauty of the fabric combo forced me to persevere, until I finshed the damn thing and took it on holiday with me to Sevilla for it's debut. Well, to add insult to injury, I struggled into the (admittedly) slightly too tight dress, ready to go out to dinner (that'll help!) and asked my boyfriend to zip me in. Which is when the zip broke. And noone had any scissors so we had to go to the hotel reception and borrow, what looked to be, childrens craft scissors in order to facilitate my release!

Well, I was unable to even look at the stupid thing for over a month, but eventually purchased and fitted a new zip, making it complete again. Now however, I've decided when I put it on it looks like I've stolen a small child's party dress. Which as a concept I'm not entire against. But it ain't going to happen, at least until my (stressful and intense month of work so I can have the rest of the summer off's) belly has diminished.

There's probably some lessons to learn in amongst all this, but with only a week left of the summer school, right now learning is something I want to put towards the back of my mind for a while!