I had this thick knit in my stash for a very long time, maybe more than 3 years. It was one of the fabrics that I brought with me when we moved to Canada, because it was beautiful and I wanted to make something I would wear for a long time. When Seamwork magazine introduced Mesa I finally decided to cut into this fabric.
It wasn’t all fun and games though. I spend an entire day stitching and unstitching. Neither my serger and my sewing machine wanted to sew this with the matching thread I had bought for this. My twin needle snapped too.
In the end I had to let it marinate for a week and get back to it with a calmer mood and ready to be ok with sewing it with white thread. I bought a new twin needle. This snapped as well. I might have not been completely zen in the end.
I finished the whole dress in tiny zig zag stitch.
Looking at the photos I notice there’s a lot of extra fabric at the back, any ideas how I can fix this? Would darts work?
This fabric is very interesting, yet so difficult to work with. When you look at it, it seems like a really nice sweater knit with a soft inside and a crisp outside of the fabric. But the elastic fibres in the knit are quite strong (it reminds me a big of scuba fabric) so even though it’s elastic it doesn’t drape too much and it’s quite rigid for a knit. It doesn’t feel like plastic at all though and I am hoping that after a few washes and drying cycles the fabric will loosen up a bit. We’ll see.
Note to self: never again wear this dress with these leggings, the stitching seams are not flattering at all 🙂
Pattern: Mesa with the subscription 4 CAD (since I’ve already used it for another dress, I will calculate as 2 CAD)
Pattern notes: I removed the slits at the hemlines and make 3/4 sleeves. I cut an M because I didn’t remember if I pre-washed the fabric (oops 🙂 and ended up grading the to an S around the waistline.
Next time I want to alter the neckline as I am not completely happy with the boat neckline. It looks great as it is but when you layer, problems happen 🙂 Plus I don’t like my lingerie straps to be showing. Also, I should make a long sleeve version as well.
Fabric: 1.3 meters thick, rich, elastic knit that broke two double needles (aargh!) and was a pain to sew! I bought this from a trip a few years ago and I don’t remember how much I paid for it. Let’s say a 10.
Notions: Doble needle 15 (never buy your double needles at the fabric store!), thread from my stash.
Final cost = 27 CAD
I’ve already worn it twice so cost per use is already 13.5 😉
Hi, don’t you just hate it when fabric doesn’t behave? I have the same problem with fabric pooling at my back. I’ve found a fix for me, the sway back adjustment. Assuming you have the pattern piece in front of you (fold line vertically) either take a dart horizontally at the lower back fading to nothing as you get near the waist edge (I usually just cut it and then tape it back together) this has worked for me.
Hope it works for you!
Hmm, this is genius! I’ll give it a try, thank you, Sandra!