Reverse engineering

I've made five dresses for myself so far. And I like them all. I love wearing them, and they look good. But I am NOT a good craftsman, and that is my biggest frustration right now. Every single one of my dresses has had to have a good amount of reverse engineering to make it fit right after I'm done--with the exception of the first one I made, out of that teal batik-y looking fabric. I keep trying though, because they say practice makes perfect, and I want to get to the point where I can sell my dresses on Etsy.

Here are some examples of the imperfections in the dresses I've made so far.

Dress 1: the fabric was very narrow--I can't remember the width, but I had to piece it together where the skirt pattern extended past the fabric. I'm very happy with how this turned out--it's barely noticeable and I was very proud of my resourcefulness. :-)

I did my lazy top stitching of the shoulder strap only, without going all the way around the band. The reason is because I such at edge stitching at this point in time, and didn't want to ruin the look of the top band with an all-over-the-place stitch line.

And omgosh the zipper. This was the third time I've used my zipper foot, and the previous times I've used it I didn't set it far enough away from the needle, so I'd broken some needles and I was really nervous. When I'm really nervous about something, my hands shake, BADLY. And I sweat. Badly. So I set the presser foot WAYYYY to far away from the needle, and this was the result.

LOLOLOL but so what, the zipper is securely attached and you can't tell how fucked up the seam is from the outside of the garment. I've gotten really good at putting zippers in since then.

Dress 2: the midriff band doesn't match up at the side where the zipper was installed.

Eh, so what. It's at the side, nobody will see it. Again, I know this is a problem because without better craftsmanship, I have no hope of having a successful Etsy store. But, these are learning mistakes.

Dress 3: Here's the crazy uneven top stitching of the front band of the bodice, and my lazy stitching of the shoulder strap to the band instead of hand-sewing it invisibly to the back of the band.

I'm wondering if an edge-stitch foot will help me with... well, the edge stitching! I have two more dresses to post in my summer sun dress series, and will show the reverse engineering for those dresses in their own posts.

Meanwhile, I just absolutely love the my sheet dresses. Made from 50-50 poly-cotton percale, they are cool and comfortable and durable and you don't have to iron them! Sometimes I've pulled them out of the dryer where they've been sitting for days and after hanging for a few minutes the wrinkles have fallen out and they're ready to go!

That was my segway into introducing my new sheet, which I can't WAIT to make into a sun dress... But now that the summer is over, I guess I'll have to wait and give some of my other patterns a try.

HERE IT IS!!

Look closely... It's people sitting at tables!! Like in a crowded old fashioned night club!