Woven fabric struck back on Karlene dress
It happened again. After last week’s success in sewing a sweater for my husband the sewing nemesis named „woven fabric“ struck back. I made a blouse and it did not fit … as I said… again.
This time I wanted to make the dress Karlene from Fibremood. A wide untailored dress with a kind of raglan sleeve, a yoke and a gather beneath it. The dress appears to be more a robe than a dress, only a belt lend it a bit structure.
As I am always hesitant to sew with woven fabric, I decided to try out the pattern with a small sheet of fabric I bought last year on the Maastricht fabric market. I wanted to turn the dress into a blouse as the most complicated is the gathered yoke part and the neckline: I thought, when the blouse part fits and is manageable for my skill set, it will have no problem to elongate the blouse into a dress in a later project.
The Belgium sewing magazine Fibremood has many features I really like, not only do they include older and bigger models, they also tell us the measurements of the models and the exhibited clothes. Although I as a typical German grew up with the famous Burda magazine, I think Burda can learn a lot from Fibremood in size and age inclusiveness. But even better, Fibremood tells the sewist the final measurements of the clothes. Meanwhile Burda only tells you for which sizes the clothes are made, but not how much ease the garment will have – leads to a funny guessing process on my side ?.
Because of the measurements given, I decided to sew the dress/blouse Karlene in size M, which will result in a bust width of 131,5 cm (and if I ever make a dress, in a hip width of 143 cm). I traced the pattern, included the seam allowance and on the sewing went. This time I did not had to puzzle the pattern on a much too small scrap of fabric – what a joy to work with sufficient fabric :-DD
The first steps were easy; closing the raglan seams and sewing the yoke parts together. Now I had to insert the yoke and fit the body onto the yoke by gathering the fabric. After inserting the yoke several times completely wrong (I told you, I have no spatial imagination) I had something like a blouse in my hands. Next step was inserting the neckline facing and closing the side seams… and here it started. Although I followed the instructions to the point, although I was accurate in cutting and pressing the fabric, the sh*** thing does not fit. And this is not an easy endeavour as the blouse is huge and wide like a sack. But yes, I and woven fabric made it possible: it did not fit. The neckline is gaping on the back and front in a very unattractive way.
And I have no clue why. Is the yoke too small? Too big? Is the problem at my shoulders or bust?
I am so annoyed ? I made the blouse last week in-between bursts of
headache and was so glad I could finish so far on Sunday, only to have
this ill-fitting garment in my hands.
I already researched but everyone who made this dress/blouse seems to
have no problems with the neckline. The other sewist have wonderful
drapy garments I would love to wear.
Here are some photos of the whole blouse, the sleeves and the hem are still unfinished…
Dear @needleworkmonday community, please wrack your brains and help me. I honestly have no idea where I should start with the corrections and it would be a shame to lose the battle against the woven fabric… again.
Thank you @crosheille for iniciating and @muscara, @shanibeer, @marblely for hosting the #needleworkmonday. If you want to see more beautiful projects with yarn, fabric and most of all needles, follow @needleworkmonday on hive blog. Or even better grab your needles and keyboard and join the #needleworkmonday community. You can read more comments on this post on my hive blog.
If this is not enough, you can find my post on Handmade on Tuesday and read even more about knitting and sewing, but beware most post are in German.