Epic Fail…

There is always a first time for everything…

I remember Madelyn van der Hoogt, then editor of Handwoven Magazine, asking me to write an End Note’s column on one of my failures and how I dealt with it.  Without meaning to be flip, I wrote back and said, “Madelyn, I don’t have failures”.  In reality, my best challenges are to make things work. That’s when I have the most fun, and really get to be creative.  I’m always able to pull a concept out and make it work.  It helps that I have a lot of experience in what’s possible, so my vision is usually dependable.

However…

There is always a first time for everything…

I saw this dress in the May 2012 issue of Burda Magazine.

I loved it.  And my previous experience with a similar dress turned out so well, I thought I’d try another one.  I’m very true to size for Burda Patterns, usually minor tweaking if I have to do anything, and I can’t ever remember not having a sewing success.  Especially with these patterns.

I ignored the tip they offered, we all know I’m NOT voluptuous, as a matter of fact, if you’ve ever heard me lecture about fit, I can pretty much fit into any commercially graded B cup pattern because I had breast cancer and can use a prosthetic to help me fit the pattern rather than alter the pattern to fit me.  Small perk, but there you have it.

But I wear knits well, and they are fun and comfortable.  I picked up a lovely knit at Mood I thought would work, but failed to note how much fabric was required.  So I couldn’t even get half a dress out of it.  Apparently the way this dress is constructed, all 16 pieces of it, is there is a gathering panel over each of the garment sections, the two are mounted together and so the dress is technically underlined with itself.  I needed something like 3 1/2 yards of fabric.

So my friend and sewing buddy extraordinaire Ginnie sent me a link to a stretchy mesh knit she got on sale through Marcy Tilton.  I liked the colors, and it was pretty sheer and I thought it would work well for this dress, since it would be two layers.  The truth is, I’m not experienced in knits, I know wovens better than anyone, but knits I’m still an amateur.  Mesh knit is much stretchier than a jersey or interlock knit.  The pattern called for a stretch jersey.  Still, I knew it had to be fairly snug, and the last dress I made with a stretch knit was almost too snug, I had to release the seams and got it to work.  The ease on a Burda pattern is pretty predictable.

It took a couple of days to cut out this pattern. I blogged about it in my last post before I got sidetracked for the guild sale, (which by the way was fantastic, I sold almost everything I made for it.)

I finally sat down to start to construct it, thinking it would be perfect for Thanksgiving with my family.  I can usually sew something like this in an evening or two.  Yeah… No…

The problem with knits, is the inability to make a test garment first.  Every knit reacts and stretches differently, and unless I used the same fabric, I wouldn’t be able to really test the fit.  So I plowed into this blindly, and from previous experience, didn’t think it would be an issue.

There were red flags.

Because I wear a breast prosthesis, I of course have to wear a bra.  The upper fronts on this dress are really wide apart.  I suppose that was because they assumed tall girls have voluptuous boobs?  I carried on and as I added the lower panels and put it on the dress form, it was becoming clear that this knit was way too stretchy and the fit was probably not going to work.

I went ahead and put together the back.  Then I basted the fronts and backs together.

This is an epic fail.  Of the greatest proportions.  It is almost comical.

And yes, the side upper fronts are way too wide apart for anyone to actually wear a bra.

And so my dilemma is what to do now.  The dress won’t be wearable for Thanksgiving.  No matter, I have tons of things to wear.  Plus we are suppose to get 10″ of snow, so I may just stay in my pajamas and not head to south Jersey and then it will all be a moot point.

I can probably remake the entire dress, section by section, redesigning with what I’ve got.  I’m not sure it is worth it.  The problem besides the fit, is the stretchiness of the knit, it should fit like an ace bandage to work, and I’m not sure I can get it that tight and stay true to the original engineered/design.  The stripe is odd, it couldn’t be matched, because it is like a watercolor wash, it isn’t consistent down the length of the yardage.  And though the stripes are cut on grain, because of the gathering angles of the dress, it looks drunk.  I dont’ think there is a fix for that.

Part of me wants the challenge of seeing if I can pull this out, I could use the experience, and I never throw anything away that could be salvaged.  But I don’t know if it is worth the time I’d need to give to it.  This is suppose to be my creative time in the studio, and to spend the next week or so reworking something that is questionable even if I get it to work, is not the best way to use my time…

And so I will continue to mull, while puttering around with other things, like the next installment of my family album.  For those of you new to the blog, I started almost four years ago, trying to make sense of our volumes and boxes of family photographs and slides, dating back to the 1970’s.  I scanned in the most important images for each event or vacation, and put together PowerPoint albums for each year.  It has been a huge labor of love.  It is one of the best gifts I can leave my children.  The problems began when we reached the 2000’s.  That’s when we got a digital camera, and well, you know digital images are essentially free.  So our trips and events that use to have a couple hundred shots to cull through, turned into a couple thousand.  The album for 2003 was larger than all of the 1980’s combined.  So I’m chugging away on 2004, and am starting to make a dent but it is slow going.   It was therefore really disappointing to take a break and think I’d just whip up a dress and have such an epic fail.

There is always a first time for everything…

Stay tuned…