Friday 14 November 2014

Unhappy/Happy Sewing FOs

wrap dress

Finally, I finished this dress!

This was part of a Craftsy Course which in itself was a good course, with good tips on how to change patterns to suit you, but not really advisable for novice sewers like myself.


With the course I received the Butterick Pattern 5030, and I initially signed up because I have always wanted to learn how to sew a wrap dress.

Now I absolutely loved, really loved, and learned so much from Meg McElwee in Sewing with Knits (this link will take you back to the post where I shared all my projects I completed in this course).

She showed me how to sew the pieces step-by-step in a great video class.

This is what I had hoped my new course The Perfect Wrap Knit Dress would teach me too.
I mean look at this awesome dress - who wouldn't want to make something if it turns out like this:

The perfect wrap knit dress


Unfortunately I didn't gain the same kind of experience with the course.

I think this course was definitely made with the advanced sewer in mind.

The instructor didn't take us through the steps, and I found myself treading water and confused at quite a couple of sections.

Because I received the pattern and the instructor didn't specifically say that she was going to take us through the pattern in a different sequence, I understood that she would show us how to sew the parts of the pattern when we come across them.

I merrily began to sew my dress according to the pattern insert and realized too late (more-or-less in the last chapter) that I had to add the belt tie in the seams and under the neckband. So I had to rip open band seams and side seams to allow for the belt!

The neckband was another headache as I had merrily attached it to the dress thinking that there was only one way to get it on there.
Once it was on, I tried the dress and noticed the collar sticking up at a weird, warped angle and suddenly distant bells rang reminding me of my Home Ec class many, many moons ago.

 What was it the teacher taught us about neckbands?......
Oh golly, I had sewed it on the wrong way.

Much to my distress I had to undo all my work from the day before and spent the entire morning doing nothing else :(

Once back on track and feeling slightly frustrated with the whole experience, I decided to persevere and hoped that the outcome would be one of wonder and awe.

Unfortunately I was wrong again!

After the garment was complete I tried it on - UGH!

It didn't fit me at all, was way too big and my girls told me it looked like an old, wealthy man in a dressing gown, kinda like a Hugh Heffner - YUCK - take it off!!!

What to do?

Well, I whipped off about 25cm off the hem and got Jas to try it on.
She looks really nice in it and it suits her with some skinny jeans underneath it.

perfect wrap dress



Would I recommend this course?

Yes - if you are looking for some advice on how to adjust a pattern so that you get a perfect fit, then this course would definitely give you some help in that area.

Yes - if you aren't a novice and can achieve the results you want from your sewing, then this is a great "Extras" course.

*No - if you are looking for a course which will give you some basics and more in sewing with knitted fabric. Then I would definitely recommend Sewing with Knits, this course gives you great satisfaction as the end result is very close to what she teaches you and is a very rewarding class to take.

No - if you are looking for a course that is built in a step-by-step construction class, this is definitely not one of those! Refer back to the *No above, that is an in-depth construction course!

So that is the end of this week's sewing attempts, maybe I will try something simpler next week - like one of these FREE Craftsy Courses for example:

bag making basics


I wish you all a super weekend.
See you soon.
x

I will be sharing this post with all of my Friday Friends :)

Craftsy

2 comments:

  1. I've signed up for a couple of the beginner sewing courses. My goal is to work on them over Thanksgiving. Maybe I will watch the whole course before sewing...just in case it's done out of sequence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi WonderWhyGal,
      Yes, I would definitely recommend watching the course before hand. I do this with all of my Craftsy courses before I even get started. I watched this course quite some time ago before my old machine died so it has been a while and I should have re-watched it before beginning the project, although that would not have solved all of the issues I had with the course and project respectively :(
      Thanks for visiting, and enjoy your courses :)
      x

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