This Shouldn’t be Too Bad…

Looking over my pile of patterns, I decided to try sewing this scallop dress from 1968. It’s a “how to sew” pattern so I thought I’d be done in no time. It only has a few pattern pieces and it’s a simple silhouette. How hard could it be? And it’s with that thinking that I jinxed myself. (I swear, looking back I felt like I was the dumb character in a horror movie that hears “something” in the basement and decides to investigate, saying the famous last words: I’ll be right back.) I assumed that I would have no problems and my confidence/cockiness got the best of me. [Sigh.]

One stupid thing I did early on was insert the zipper to the wrong sides of the back pattern pieces. I just wasn’t paying attention and sewed it completely in before I realized my mistake and then I had to take it out and put it in again (at the correct spot). So that sucked.

Another thing I did wrong was the sewing of the front facing. I tried on the dress after the facing was attached and I thought the neckline felt odd—it was too high up for my liking but I didn’t do anything to fix it. Looking at the directions later, I saw that I was supposed to sew the neckline deeper in the front (thus bringing the neckline lower down).

After these two mishaps occurred, I was on the fence about finishing this dress. I was about half way done and I wasn’t excited about it. But I figured that since I’d already cut the material and was hours into the project, I might as well finish it. However, my lack of enthusiasm for the dress made me less motivated to work on it, so it kind of sat around for a while until I finally decided I should just finish it and get it over with.

I wasn’t crazy about the fit of the dress; it was looser than I liked. I wanted my dress to fit closer to the body (like in 1 white dress) rather than looser (like in 2 dress). So I took in the sides and then that messed up the armholes, so I had to cut them a bit deeper and then that messed up the armhole facings. It was just a domino effect of disaster. The pattern didn’t share the finished size of the garment, so I probably should have measured the pieces to get a better idea of the finished size. [Pause.] But I didn’t and this screwed me over later.

When I started this project I’d wanted to put scallops at the bottom of the dress, but I nixed it in favor of a quick hem. I was so over this dress. I made so many mistakes because I wasn’t reading the directions properly or wasn’t paying attention or rushed it. It was rather torturous. I’m glad it’s over.