Another Miss

After the disappointment of the previous project, I wanted to try playing around with texture and knits again, but not as another jacket.

I am, once again, disappointed.

 

 

 I had A Vision!  I was imagining a sort of Nineteen-teens Medieval Revival filtered through 1920s kids' dresses.  And, honestly, it might work the way I imagined on a slimmer body, where the shoulder width isn't so close to the waist size, and the velvet and broderie anglaise  applied to the bodice end up falling in a more pronounced arch.

I went back and forth with myself for days about whether to actually use the velvet and eyelet or not, too, finally deciding to stop second-guessing myself and go for it.

I will say, from the start I knew I was going to use the ribbing from one of the sweaters I thrifted for to cut apart for the previous (disappointing) jacket, and which did work well for a quick hat.

There was a slight issue in the fact that the waistband ribbing, which was what I wanted to use for the neckline, was sew together at side seams with serging that was bulky and left the pieces noticeably mis-aligned.  (Like I said, I didn't mind buying this sweater to cut apart because, one, it was there on 99¢ day, meaning it had been in the thrift store for a month--including a week on half off--with no-one buying it, and, also, it was really shoddily made.)  

Enter Simplicity 8631, acquired in a large craft thrift store pattern purchase a few years ago.  I cut the bodice from good ol' Simplicity 9153 and borrowed 8631's neckline and two-piece neckband.

I also borrowed most of 8361's sleeve, although I had to make the sleeves shorter due to just not having enough fabric left to make them longer.  I also had to make them a bit narrower at the top, because 9153's sleeve openings are a little smaller than 8631's.

The cuffs had actually been separate pieces of ribbing (still sewn into a tube with inelegant serging) that were stitched to the sleeves, so I was able to snip the stitching and have ribbing tubes ready to sew to the sleeves.

I think the biggest mistake I made with this project was thinking that this double knit fabric, no matter how much it looks like a jacquard, would behave in any way but as a heavy knit.  The whole thing just feels, aesthetically, like a fancy 1990s sweatshirt.  It doesn't help that the "I did a burn test and think it might just be actual silk" velvet still manages to look like cheap polyester crushed velour here.

Plus, y'know, all of the beige. 

I've had this lace for ages, probably finding it in a regular thrift store back before I started getting more strict about not buying stuff just because it was a rare find! great bargain! (although it might have been in a grab bag with something I genuinely did want--I can't at all remember.)  So I passed over its beigeness for years, until considering my options for this double knit fabric, with all of its beigeness.

 

If you look at the post I made when I thrifted this double knit fabric, you might note that I really only bought it because it was an interesting novelty--double knit that looks like jacquard!--and has some purple in it.  Honestly, it was more of an impulse buy, and one I have now firmly realized I should not have made.  I've been getting better about resisting pure impulse buys--I do go to the craft thrift store with a general list of what I want, so nothing I get is anything I've been specifically looking for, because that's not how I work--so I let myself get this as a treat.  Maybe this dress experience will help me resist more in the future.

I did consider not putting the lace and velvet on the bodice at all.  I though that would end up so bland, though.  Looking at the back...yeah, I don't think I would have liked it more without.  Definitely not enough to make it feel like it's worth opening up some of the bodice seams and removing the trims...especially since that would highlight how unevenly I cut the fabric to begin with.

...on the other hand...do I really want to doom this purple velvet--of which what used here is most of what I have--to be on this disappointment forever...

 

Edit, later that day: I did indeed pick out all the stitches holding on the trim, and then open up some of the bodice seams so it could be completely removed, then re-sew all of the seams.  I'm leaving the lace trim at the hem, because it's actually sewn to the very edge of the fabric, which was then tacked up to make the blind hem (so the lace hangs free from the top of the hem, instead of being sewn into the hem itself), and the idea of removing it seems like it would be too much hassle to do cleanly or without having to re-sew the entire hem.

 

Still don't like it, but the velvet and broderie angalise have been freed.