fake wrap fun times

So last week was a bit shit and I didn't post anything. Not because I didn't have anything to post; I had several. I photographed three dresses then wasn't prepared to post any of them because I couldn't deal with the way any of the photos looked. Reasons ranged from "this looks nice in person but photographs badly" to "I don't think I can pull off this much orange" to "...I don't even know, it's fine, but I don't like it." I will, at some point, post all of them, but with my mental health being the way it currently is I had a minor crisis and decided everything was terrible and had to be talked through making a different dress and now I'm posting on a Tuesday afternoon like a weirdo. But anyway. Here is a dress I just finished that I actually like.

This is Simplicity Amazing Fit 1653, which I got free with a sewing magazine. Or more accurately, this is a pattern I saw and liked which happened to come attached to a magazine I'm never going to read. It seemed like the perfect thing - not tight but not remotely floofy, a wrap detail which would satisfy my current obsession with such things without the issue of wrap skirts on windy days, versatile enough to wear pretty much anywhere, including dance socials.

Pictured: Me being extremely elegant and thus very much in demand at dance socials, where nobody thinks I'm a huge dork. 

I got this sweater knit in Walthamstow Market. I asked for two and a half metres, and as she rolled it out, it became apparent that someone had cut two large circles set a fair distance apart smack in the middle of the fabric. So she measured what I'd asked for from the intact fabric and offered me that plus the bit with the holes for £7, which I took. I managed to cut this dress, a jumper and a cardigan from that £7 worth of fabric, which may be my best value to date. (Photos of these will also be forthcoming, as the cardigan especially is a really nice pattern, but the last thing I want to do right now is photograph myself in a giant grey cardigan. Give me time.)

The wrap is meant to be the other way round, but I cut it out backwards because I wasn't paying attention. It doesn't bother me too much.

Since one of the main selling points of the pattern is that it tells you how to fit it, the instructions call for a lot of tacking stitches, trying things on, moving things around and leaving things unstitched while you fit. I did all this, tried it on and it seemed to fit perfectly, which was both gratifying and slightly annoying. Then I tried to close up the underarm seam and everything went wrong. It wasn't working at all, the whole fit was suddenly off, weird bits of fabric were poking out everywhere. I found myself Googling things like "is it possible to have disproportionately fat armpits" before I realised that the dress had raglan sleeves and didn't close up that way. I went to bed that night feeling somewhat sheepish.

The pattern allows for an optional back zip (which obviously I wasn't going to use) and also calls for a package of double fold bias binding for the neckline. I'm not sure if using woven bias binding on knit necklines is a thing that people do and I'm just a beginner who doesn't know about these things, but I didn't want to use woven bias binding on my knit neckline, so I just cut a couple of strips of jersey and used them as facings. Next time I make this dress I'll make them a bit shorter - the front gapes a bit when I sit down. I went for short sleeves even though long ones would have made the dress more versatile for this weather, because I didn't want to be wearing that much of this mid-grey colour. The next one I make will probably be leopard print, and I haven't decided which sleeves would be best for that yet.

All in all, I'm feeling somewhat better about things now and can hopefully get back into a proper posting schedule (I know I don't strictly need a posting schedule, but it helps me stay on top of things). Coming next: a bunch more wrap things, probably. I bought another wrap top pattern to try based on recommendations in my last post, and also some incredibly 70s fabric which is demanding to be a wrap dress. I'll try not to get too repetitive, promise.

(New things in our house: a cinnamon tree ordered off the internet which turned out to be a cinnamon twig, which we have planted in a giant pot anyway and named Miguel, and also a portable outdoor pizza oven which required my accident-prone beardy boyfriend to buy a full-on plumber's blowtorch. So far he's managed not to set fire to anything except the wood chips and one of the pizzas, but this cannot last.)