I Thank God for Giving me the Gift of Sewing
During my prayer time I realized I had never thanked the Lord for giving me the gift of sewing and at that moment I thanked Him. I am absolutely loving my sewing sessions lately - so much so I don't want to do anything else. Lekala patterns is helping to increase my sewing joy right now.
Through the years sewing has always been a joy for me. It has been a stress reliever and my hiding place. As of late the only thing I have truly desired is the time in my sewing room. My house looks like a tornado hit it and I have 3 sewing projects for others that I need to start and finish. I have been selfishly sewing for only for myself.
Lekala has given me a respite from pattern adjustments and my sewing pleasure has sky rocketed. I do not get paid for promoting Lekala - I just like sharing what is working for me. Lekala S4006 is this posts pattern.
I will admit I was a little skeptical about this one because there was only a back picture of the pattern but ultimately I decided to give it a whirl.
I had to choose fabric from my stash and I wanted to use either a brown or orange soft corduroy but I could not find it which is another indication that I have too much fabric. I searched but to no avail. I had some navy blue and cranberry soft corduroy but I did not have enough for the pattern.
I had a black pinstripe fabric but I did not want a black dress. I needed some color in my life but I also wanted something warm. I had some heavier corduroy and ultimately decided to use it but wasn't really happy about my choices. I chose the pale pink heavy corduroy.
I seem the make the most mistakes on the simplest patterns. The first and worst mistake was made on the front. Both the front and back main pieces are cut on the fold. On the front piece at the top where the "V" is it did not lay on the fold so in my wonderful way of thinking I decided that it should be cut off at that part.
It finally hit me when I was getting ready to attach the backing piece to turn it that I had messed up. I still had the piece that I should not have cut and decided to patch it together. I will find out how good a job I did when I wash it 😀. Trust that I have marked this pattern so I don't make that mistake again.
What I did not realize until I started to fix my mistake was that I was working with a stretch corduroy so I got a bit of stretching during my decorative stitching.
My second mistake. I stitched the front bust darts and learned very quickly that corduroy is non-forgiving on dart ending points. Normally I do a pretty decent job on ending the dart so you don't have a dimple showing and most times I can iron it out - not so with corduroy. I finally decided that I would have live with my dimple darts - it wasn't worth the frustration.
I had put this project away for about a week because I did not like my fabric choice and when I came back to it it almost became a UFO. I stitched the front to the back and thought the dress looked a little drab, matronly, and just plain boring.
I knew I had to do something to add a little interest to it. I finally decided to use one of the hundreds of decorative stitches that I never use on my machine. I also tried the hands free sewing for the first time and I actually liked it because I could focus it on keeping my stitching straight as opposed to focusing on keeping a steady speed with the presser foot. I love my Janome 8900 (secretly coveting the Janome 9400).
I also added the decorative stitch to the hemline but didn't realize I did not take a photo of it until just now. I used Sulky's 30 wt Cotton Blendable thread for the decorative stitching.
Oh - the other mistakes I will let you figure out!
What may not be obvious from the pictures is that the back hem is about an inch lower than the front hem and I love it.
Lekala is not known for their abundance of ease. This dress strayed from their norm - it has plenty of ease. I ended up removing about an inch from the hip area.
The jury was still out for me until I put the dress on this morning and it almost became a UFO because I was so unimpressed with it when I was sewing it.
It is soooo comfortable and looks so much better on me than I expected. I felt and looked like a million bucks when I walked out the door on my way to church. To my pleasant surprise I got many complements on this simple unassuming dress. I love this dress!
Through the years sewing has always been a joy for me. It has been a stress reliever and my hiding place. As of late the only thing I have truly desired is the time in my sewing room. My house looks like a tornado hit it and I have 3 sewing projects for others that I need to start and finish. I have been selfishly sewing for only for myself.
Lekala has given me a respite from pattern adjustments and my sewing pleasure has sky rocketed. I do not get paid for promoting Lekala - I just like sharing what is working for me. Lekala S4006 is this posts pattern.
I will admit I was a little skeptical about this one because there was only a back picture of the pattern but ultimately I decided to give it a whirl.
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| My Version of Lekala S4006 |
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| Lekala S4006 |
How I Did It
I had to choose fabric from my stash and I wanted to use either a brown or orange soft corduroy but I could not find it which is another indication that I have too much fabric. I searched but to no avail. I had some navy blue and cranberry soft corduroy but I did not have enough for the pattern.
I had a black pinstripe fabric but I did not want a black dress. I needed some color in my life but I also wanted something warm. I had some heavier corduroy and ultimately decided to use it but wasn't really happy about my choices. I chose the pale pink heavy corduroy.
I seem the make the most mistakes on the simplest patterns. The first and worst mistake was made on the front. Both the front and back main pieces are cut on the fold. On the front piece at the top where the "V" is it did not lay on the fold so in my wonderful way of thinking I decided that it should be cut off at that part.
It finally hit me when I was getting ready to attach the backing piece to turn it that I had messed up. I still had the piece that I should not have cut and decided to patch it together. I will find out how good a job I did when I wash it 😀. Trust that I have marked this pattern so I don't make that mistake again.
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| My Attempt at Patching with a Zig-Zag Stitch |
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| My Attempt at Reinforcing my Patching |
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| My Attempt at Covering up my Mistake with a Decorative Stitch |
My second mistake. I stitched the front bust darts and learned very quickly that corduroy is non-forgiving on dart ending points. Normally I do a pretty decent job on ending the dart so you don't have a dimple showing and most times I can iron it out - not so with corduroy. I finally decided that I would have live with my dimple darts - it wasn't worth the frustration.
I had put this project away for about a week because I did not like my fabric choice and when I came back to it it almost became a UFO. I stitched the front to the back and thought the dress looked a little drab, matronly, and just plain boring.
I knew I had to do something to add a little interest to it. I finally decided to use one of the hundreds of decorative stitches that I never use on my machine. I also tried the hands free sewing for the first time and I actually liked it because I could focus it on keeping my stitching straight as opposed to focusing on keeping a steady speed with the presser foot. I love my Janome 8900 (secretly coveting the Janome 9400).
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| Decorative Stitching at Bottom of Sleeve |
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| Decorative Stitching on Back Neck Area |
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| Decorative Stitching at "V" Split and Front Neck Area |
Oh - the other mistakes I will let you figure out!
What may not be obvious from the pictures is that the back hem is about an inch lower than the front hem and I love it.
Lekala is not known for their abundance of ease. This dress strayed from their norm - it has plenty of ease. I ended up removing about an inch from the hip area.
Conclusion
The jury was still out for me until I put the dress on this morning and it almost became a UFO because I was so unimpressed with it when I was sewing it.
It is soooo comfortable and looks so much better on me than I expected. I felt and looked like a million bucks when I walked out the door on my way to church. To my pleasant surprise I got many complements on this simple unassuming dress. I love this dress!
thank you for your post, as I want to buy the pattern and wasn't sure.
ReplyDeleteI have bigger than average arms compared to frame, so hopefully it will work on them
Try it - you can adjust the arms.
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