Swing Dress
Happy resurrection Sunday!
I made another one! Another Swing Dress that is! I love this self drafted pattern. I wanted to whip up something quick for Easter Sunday so I picked my Tried and True (TNT) self drafted swing dress pattern. I decided to color block this dress. I couldn’t decide what colors or fabric to use so I took a trip to my blue sewing room. I have a pink sewing room (where my machines are) and a blue sewing room (that used to be my son’s room) that has my cutting table and fabric. I should do a review on these 2 rooms soon.
Fabric choice: Now back to the dress. I decided to use some fabric I bought years ago from Hancock’s Fabrics. I am not sure what type of fabric it is. It’s a woven (non-stretch) fabric. It feels like a rayon/polyester blend. But since I had several cuts in different colors, I decided to use it to color block this dress. I choose brown for the top bodice; cream for the middle section; and red for the bottom ruffle. I also wanted to add some bias binding for more color blocking. I chose a carrot color bias tape and decided to use it on the top bodice and on the hem of the ruffle. I also used carrot color thread for topstitching.
Sewing: I didn’t need instructions since this was a self drafted pattern and I’ve made it a dozen times. The dress looked exactly how I thought it would when I finished.
Problems I ran into during sewing: I ran out of bias tape! I had 3 packages of carrot colored bias tape which I thought was more than enough. I used every single bit of those 3 packages and ran out right before finishing the hem. I didn’t want to make a trip to the store so I looked to see if I had any other color that was a close match. I had some orange bias tape but the color was a little off. Then I spotted some carrot piping. I decided that would work so I took the piping out of the tape, removed the stitching, pressed the tape open and used a bias tape maker to press the edges. Then I realized it was not wide enough so I opened one side (which I would place on the wrong side of the fabric since the raw edge would be exposed) and would attach the folded edge to the right side of the fabric. Of course because the stitching would only attach the top edge because the underside was too narrow. So in order to attach the bias tape on the wrong side without having two stitching lines, I used two sided tape. It was too wide so I split it down the middle and then attached it. But it was still too wide and was hanging out passed the bias tape and sticking to everything it touched. So I switched to heat and bond tape. It’s easier to manipulate and once you iron it; it sticks to the fabric. That worked perfectly. Problem solved!
I loved the final look!
