new dress (and a haircut)

I made another crochet top dress for Kate, using the yarn left over from my sweater.  I wanted the bodice to be shorter than the pink one that I made, but I crocheted it pretty loosely, so it stretches quite a bit with the weight of the skirt, and ended up being just as long.  I think the hang is nicer, though, and I like what I did with the skirt.  It's two tiers, and the bottom one is two full widths of the fabric.   



I love the fabric, and the whole thing looks good together, but after she wore it to church I realized it just isn't going to work right now. When she moves around her shirt rides up underneath, and then she gets this weird gap. So I either need to add something to the bottom of the shirt to keep it down, or just wait until next year and hope that it fits better when the bodice isn't quite so long on her.



I got Kate to model the dress for me along with her new haircut. With hair-brushing sessions becoming increasingly unpleasant, we decided a short cut was in order. (It ended up a little shorter than I was expecting, but it's cute!) Kate likes it, and we have a lot less trouble getting ready in the mornings. This is good.

Pink Dress

I finally got some pictures of Kate in her pink dress.  (Not what I wanted, with the harsh sunlight, but it's something!)



The bodice turned out a bit too long.  When I was making it I was almost done with the front and decided it was too short, so I ripped out the top and added on a couple more inches.  Then when I got the whole thing put together, I thought, "Oh, I guess I should have left it the way it was."  I wasn't really going for the drop-waist look.  (Maybe it'll fit better next year!)



All in all I think it worked pretty well. I may try making some more along the same lines.

Tension Headaches (me vs. the sewing machine)

I've been working on this pink dress for Kate. It's almost done now, but I did have some trouble getting started.

We have this Brother CS6000i sewing machine that Doug ordered online about a year and a half ago. He used it to make his doublet, and didn't have any trouble with the machine, but when I tried to use it I just couldn't get the tension right. (Fortunately I started on some test pieces rather than right on the skirt.)

With the tension all the way down on 1, the top thread was really tight and the bottom stitches looked like they were staggered, one to the left and the next to the right of the center line. Turning the tension up only made it worse. I had a feeling the problem was with the bobbin, but couldn't figure out how to adjust it. (It's a drop-in bobbin--it turns out there is a case, but it's just a little harder to get to.)

I looked online and found some comments about a lot of people having tension problems with this machine. I decided to take it down to Quality Sewing and Vacuum and see what they could tell me. (Sandi Pickering from church is the manager there.) A very nice lady helped me out. When she popped off the bottom plate it was all full of red doublet-lint. She got that all brushed out, and adjusted the tension on the bobbin for me, and helped me pick out a better thread. The thread that I was using was "polyester covered polyester," which may have been making the machine unhappy. Apparently anything that says "covered" is undesirable. I did not know this.

With these various ministrations, the machine performed much better, and I was able to get the skirt pieces sewn together without further difficulty. I got that all done and then sewed the skirt onto the crocheted bodice. When Jill Tracy assembled the autumn dress for me, she just seamed the skirt and bodice together on the wrong side like regular fabric. On this one I put a picot edging along the bottom of the bodice, so I decided to top-stitch it. I just sewed carefully in the ditch between two rows of crochet stitches, and then did another line on the next row up, for added security. It seemed like it worked really well.

With the kitchen table being our only work-space we have to shuffle things around for projects and eating.  I have also borrowed the neighbor's ironing board.  It's up against the back door.  We make do!