Tuesday 19 July 2011

Housedress...

noun  \'hau's-,dres\

... a dress made with simple lines that is suitable for housework and is usually made of washable fabric...



Nowhere in the Merrian-Webster definition does it say anything about a housedress being ugly, yet Mama R is handing me fabric from the ugly pile of fabric.

Mama R has great taste but she's trying to use whatever fabric she has rather considering what it might actually look like when it is finished because it is something she plans to wear around the house and she wants to be economic. I get that.

Leaf print lightweight cotton
And actually, I don't mind lightweight cotton print that I'm sewing right now. The leaf print suits Mama R's petite frame and with temperatures in the mid-thirties (that's celsius) this week I can see why she is looking forward to having a dress made in the fabric. 
The ugly fabric










But when she handed me the ugly fabric, a purple and grey striped cotton I had to put my foot down... on the gas pedal and straight to the fabric store. Mama R deserves better looking fabric than that!  

I don't really think that it is ugly-ugly, I'm sure it would look fine if used for a men's shirt, or a tunic, or lining for the grocery bags I make with left-over fabric... but I just couldn't picture it for the A-line dress we were making with the front bust darts.  


100% printed Cotton stretch Sateen
Anyway, at Fabricland I found something that we both can work with, economical and I think cute. It is a beige and brown 100% cotton printed stretch sateen and it was buried deep in the sale section. And get this 70% off! Love it even more. 

I was lucky enough to get the last two metres of fabric off the roll, enough to make another dress for Mama R and extra fabric to make bias tape for the neckline.   

What did this piece of fabric cost?  $9.72!!!

Thankfully, she likes it. She never wants to treat herself and she is the type of woman who always puts others before herself. I'm just glad that she likes the new fabric and she has no excuse for making me feel guity about spending money on her, because I didn't.  

So now that I'm saved from sewing the ugly fabric into a dress (see, I'm really a selfish person), I can focus on finishing the leaf-print cotton dress.  

It is coming along nicely.   


Here the pockets are being placed after they have been serged.  I like to finish the edge using the serger and then stitching 5/8" from the edge.

I use the stitching line as my guide to press the edges in and create a nice curve.

The pockets are placed at a slant basically the same angle as the front dart. It just happened that way but it looks sweet and Mama R likes it and that's all that matters really.


The next step requires some prep before sewing the zipper.

I pressed the back finished openings for a lapped zipper.

No need to interface the zipper area even though it is a lightweight fabric it is quite stable. With some time to baste the zipper in place everything worked out fine. I didn't need to take out the seam ripper for any correction work.

Love it when that happens!

Anyway, I should get to work. Mama R's waiting for her new dresses.



        







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