Monday 19 February 2018

Basic and Repeat

2017 was a year of many repeats and there are actually several reasons for that.

I almost stopped buying RTW. I am not participating in any RTW fast of anything because I still prefer buying two types of clothing – lingerie and sportswear – and I do not want to venture into sewing them. I find lingerie very fiddly and the accessories rather expensive and most importantly, I found a brand which fits perfectly, so why bother. I really like nice lingerie but at the end of the day, I alternate between the same model in different colors because it is the least visible under my clothing. And now, that VS ships to EU without charging taxes and high shipping costs, I really do not have a reason to get to sewing underwear.
As for sportswear, this is a different story. I do at least 3-4 hours of sports every week, so my sportswear needs are important. On the other side, I am already very well equipped and get a new t-shirt any time I participate in an official run (4-5 every year). So even though I throw then from time to time, I always have a lot of them. In addition, sportswear being stretchy, the fitting needs are less important.

I am sewing a big majority of my clothes, which means that I also found out what works for me and where I should concentrate my efforts. I of course dare to try new patterns and expand my sewing skills, but for the basics I will not change what already works

It has been some time I have been sewing, therefore, I have already thrown away things I have sewn because they have shrunk in the washing or because they have been worn to death (or because of a poor material choice).

This basically brings me to this repeat dress. It has been made to replace this basic shift. The original version was sewn once just because I did not have a better idea on what to do and I just pulled out a piece of black cotton remnant for that. It was in a regular circulation for some time, the fabric was no longer black around the seams and the back seams were almost disintegrating. (normally, I do not need any back seam or zipper on my shift dress T&T, but I was distracted then and cut out 2 back pieces. I knew that I could not live without it so set out to replace it.

The new dress is made out of some embroidered cotton which was stiffer than expected and at the same time really difficult to iron – a big problem because a basic black dress needs to be practical. I decided to interface it with some black light silk-cotton voile which helped a lot to the creasing/ ironing problem but at the same time added bulk. So I abandoned the idea of lining the dress and just finished the main seams with some bias binding (the original dress had neck facing and I never really liked that).

I also sewed pockets because I was too lazy on the original version and missed them too much. In this picture you can also see nicely the fabric.

And basically that’s it – it was done in just a few hours and hopefully will serve me for some time now.

2 comments:

  1. Ugh, I know that feeling of losing your work to poor fabric choice all too well. Hopefully this one stays with you a bit longer, it looks great on you!

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  2. J'espère que ce joli tissu durera bien longtemps!

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