Sewing a knit dress - Tiramisu!

I decided to join Steph's (from Cake Patterns) Tiramisu Sewalong, because I had the fabric and the pattern and I thought it would help with motivation to sew after the holidays.

What a great experience! The posts on the Sewing Cake website are very helpful and the Flickr group has lots of great pics of the process.

The pattern is a completely different concept in sizing, sewing instructions and fit.

The sizing, devised by Steph is based on a high-bust measurement so i found I bypassed a whole conversation in my head comparing the pattern to others, and comparing my 'size' to some ideal 10,12,14,16. The sewing instructions are very visual and remind me of the Japanese style that I love. Achieving a good fit is built into sewing steps and means that you baste, fit, alter, sew throughout the whole process.

I have a habit of avoiding muslins, because I measure patterns carefully, and sometimes tissue fit, but my main fabric was Liberty of London cotton jersey (from Raystitch.co.uk), so this time I didn't take a chance!

The muslin fabric is a viscose jersey which I used before for a Vogue dress and is lighter than my main fabric. I cut the Midriff piece of the pattern longer in the hope that the muslin would be wearable, and it worked.

 

The muslin was really helpful in relation to sizing. There was way too much room in the shoulders for me - with the shoulder seam ending up a few inches down my back!. I usually have to shorten the bodice in patterns and this was no different. Also the weight of the skirt was going to pull down the dress even more, so I went down a size.

 

 

The only alteration I made to the pattern was cutting the front skirt on the fold rather than two pieces to save fabric, as I had just 2 metres of the Liberty.

There are still some lines/wrinkling in the front bodice at the crossover, but it is almost impossible to see because of the print on the fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

As the skirt is cut on the bias, the dress needs to be left hang before hemming. It hung for 2 days, and I turned up the hem once, turning up extra where it was hanging more, and basted it. It seem to have worked - the hem is mostly very even.

 

It's an incredibly comfortable dress to wear, and best of all there's no gaping at the front because of the binding. The Flickr group has lots of great pictures, especially the 'no gaping' shots!

 

 

 

 

 

I don't sew much with knits and there seems to be a few reasons for this. It's difficult to access knit fabric in Ireland despite all the beautiful cotton knits, many organic, being produced in Europe.

Knits are mostly not conducive to my usual seam finishing methods, because the seam becomes too heavy for the fabric. So with knits, I have to get over myself! and my need for tidiness on the inside and leave seams exposed inside the dress.

There doesn't seem to be a classification of knit fabrics similar to that of cotton fabrics, which means two similar knits when sewn with the same pattern will produce 2 completely results and fit.

It's been so worthwhile participating in the Tiramisu Sewalong. It has helped me to be more confident in sewing with knit fabric and learning how it behaves. Steph has been a very 'hands on' teacher and very responsive to pictures and queries posted.

 

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