Madras and Roses in the Cards

The last shirt I made involved some madras, and this project used the rest of it (scraps aside.)

It started as a simple Fake Burda 6401/Mock McCall's 8197.

But.

I have recently been exposed to Magnolia Pearl, and while, honestly, I recoil from the shapeless post-apocalyptic whimsy of the brand, it did remind me that I can put appliqués on dresses (as opposed to the project idea I've had for an appliquéd jacket, fabrics for which I've been squirreling away already.)  It seems to have been six years since I last added appliqués to a dress.

So, I dug around for my largest chintz motifs, and anything else I might add, and, after taking way too long to sew the basic, simple dress itself, I ended up with this 

 

Were these the best decisions?  Doesn't matter! Those appliqués aren't going anywhere now!

The construction of the dress itself went together with no problems, just low motivation, and I think that may have come from knowing how fiddly it would be to satin stitch down the edges of all of those 100% optional floral and leaf shapes.  I did consider not doing that!  When I started the project, I wasn't intending to do that, and the dress would have been fine if I hadn't done that.

My initial concerns were with getting all of the (visible) horizontal plaids to line up

 

I thought I could get away without using fusible web for the appliqués, and maybe I could have, but I started satin stitching around the first card and said, nope.  Needs fusible.

I know the optimum way to use Wonder Under is to fuse a rectangle of fabric containing the target motif to a rectangle of Wonder Under, then trim away the excess.  Since I had not initially planned to use fusible web at all, I definitely did not do that.

After trying some different things, I ended up laying the cut-out fabric face down on some white cardboard on the ironing board, then laying the Wonder Under face down on that cut-out fabric and tracing around the shape with a pencil on the Wonder Under backing.  Then I cut out the Wonder Under, moved the cardboard to expose the ironing board surface, and fusing everything together.  Very little aligned perfectly, but that was fine.  Trimming excess bits gave each piece enough time to cool down so I could peel off the backing.

 

I used off white thread in the bobbin for the satin stitching around the edges of all the appliqués, with the satin stitch zigzag width determined by the opening in the straight stitch foot.  I had actually started with the bobbin full of the tex 24 thread I'd gotten to do patchwork, but I knew that having a thin thread in one side and a heavy thread in the other was...not a good idea...  It manifested in the thread breaking a few times before I went to the off white heavier thread to match the top thread.  I only had to refill the bobbin once, and that's with starting with a not-full bobbin, so it wasn't as bad as I expected.

 

And I still have white thread in the serger, but I feel like there's enough white in the madras that it's not too much of a contrast.  And, look: pockets!

 

I did a blind hem because the note on my pattern is to cut the skirt at 24" long, and to simply fold a hem on a 24" cut skirt would have been longer than I wanted.  I went back and added to the note: 24" for a blind hem, 22" for a little folded hem.

I still don't like fighting with my machine to get it out of automatic blind stitch mode—although I did see something saying some vintage machines won't go out of special stitches unless the zigzag is set to the center of its range? which I should try sometime, except if that isn't it, then I'd still have to fight to get my machine back to regular stitch mode.  So.  I use my machine's weird on-the-fly zigzag width selection ability to flip it into a wide zigzag every few stitches, and it turns out well enough.

Since I didn't add the appliqués until after the dress was constructed, I made sure to have some of the appliqués going across seams.  One of the bodice appliqués crosses over to the skirt, and the other crosses to the sleeve.  On the skirt, one of the big appliqués wraps around to the back. 

That was actually the first appliqué I started satin stitching, figuring it would give me time to get used to how things go by the time I got to the neckline appliqués at the end.  I did not, however, notice that I had left a gap between the roses and the cut angled edge of the card print, that was supposed to be completely hidden by the roses—not until I was editing the photos for this post.

All of the other cards I cut from the print were complete rectangles, but I wanted to use this one so I could keep the suite distribution relatively even, even if it meant covering up the part if it that was missing due to the cut of the piece of fabric I had been (so generously) given.

And then I forgot to double check that I had actually done that when I was fusing things on. And also didn't notice it when I was satin stitching.  I satin stitched that edge down after discovering it via the photo.  It's near the hem and on the back, I don't expect it's going to get a lot of scrutiny.

And here's the last appliqué, added purely so there would be something else on the back.

I didn't have a lot of that particular floral print left, and having that limit prompted me to use just about every whole rose left on it (although I still have a maybe 12" square piece that I didn't use at all.)  The card print didn't have a lot of whole cards left on it, either—I went ahead and cut them all out, then put what was left into the basket where I'm collecting things for the potential appliquéd jacket I mentioned earlier.  Part of the reason I was hesitant about using the Wonder Under was because I...didn't want to use it up.  So, even if I might be mildly ambivalent about this project, it was still a nice mental stretch, in some areas.

 

And maybe I'll genuinely like it once I actually try it on...or maybe even...just...press it again...