More Learning about Dressmaking

Yay I’ve done 3 sessions of dressmaking class and a lot of cutting fabric, washing fabric, ironing fabric and cussing in between! And yay, it hasn’t been years since my last post!

Last week, my lovely teacher positioned the paper pattern of my dress onto my fabric for me. It is SO important that this bit is done slowly and carefully because you need to position your pattern according to where the selvedge and “grainline” direction of your fabric is so that it doesn’t bulge and stretch in the wrong places. I then pinned all of it!

I made the mistake of cutting out the dart line on my bodice front, so that part had to be cut again. I also cut on the fold line of my skirt front, so I had to do that all again! Luckily I’d bought 3 metres of my beautiful fabric so I had more than enough to spare!

In my last session, I began by doing a “stay stitch” all along my bodice neckline to help me keep it straight when seaming it all together.

Look at that mess! Someone never learned how to wind a bobbin properly. But look at my lovely fabric 🙂

I then made my first ever dart!

You can just make out the red tailor’s chalk along the dart line. I’m so proud of myself for doing my first dart.

And then we found out that my pattern calls for lining *groans* so I have to do all of that all over again! Today was a mad dash around the local shopping centre and high street for suitable fabric. Lining should be lightweight so bogstandard cotton is slightly too heavy. I thought about buying online but it would take too long because these wonderful online haberdasheries have a queue of orders that need measuring and cutting off the bolt before being posted, and I need the fabric washed and dried before Friday when I planned to use the iron at my mum’s! And then after that is all the cutting etc which I’ll have to do in the evenings because I’m back to work from Saturday.

I’m so excited to be back on the sewing machine again. Last time was in 2016 during my patchwork course which I had to quit due to the teacher being a bully. These courses can be so much fun but really difficult if you have confidence issues or mental health issues. Luckily I’ve gone to counselling and done a lot of mindfulness since then so I’m in a much better place for a sewing course now.

Oh before I forget, is anyone watching the Great British Sewing Bee? That’s one of the homeworks set by the teacher! So far I love Annie’s Ghana-style wrap dress, Brogan’s netball outfit and Marni’s hoody.