Starting new project-Gremlins or Bad Karma

http://sewingbytheseatofmypants.blogspot.com/2009/07/ever-have-one-of-those-projects.html This is a link to a post by Karen at "Sewing by the Seat of my Pants" blog. I happened to read it yesterday. As I said to Karen when those projects happen, I think I may decide to quit sewing garments and take up sewing quilts. Thank goodness I don't.

Last night I completed the McCall's dress and I began getting ready to start the Butterick dress that is next up. I threaded the sewing machine, serger and coverstitch machines. I then cut out interfacing and fused to garment pattern pieces.

This afternoon I started on the dress. The first step was to turn under 5/8 seam allowances along the edge of the ties for the dress bodice and then stitch them down. This was rather fiddly, but got it completed. I then stitched those to the front bodice. The next step was to sew the center front piece to the two front bodice pieces. There are two of these pieces and one serves as a facing or lining after the non-interfaced piece is sewn to the two bodice fronts. Reading the instructions described sewing the facing piece after this step. This step per instructions require one to sew one side by machine and the other side is sewn by hand. Sewing by hand is an annoyance to me and having worked in a sewing factory for a brief period while attending college there is no hand sewing in RTW; couture but not RTW.

Thus I had an idea of attaching all pieces by serger. To make a long story short, pieces did not line up and issues developed requiring me to remove the serger stitches-pain #1. After doing so I basted one center piece to one front bodice, then basted the facing piece to other side and then re-serged. More issues-pain#2. I then realized that the center piece was attached upside down, requiring removal of serger stitches AGAIN.-pain #3.

All of this required me to have to cut another front bodice piece and fortunately I had enough of the fabric left to pull this off. I then cut two more center front pieces. The above steps have now been completed and I am happy to report I did not have to do any hand stitching. Perhaps with 20/20 hindsight, I should have followed the instructions.

After this I decided it was time to take a break. I watched a sewing video. Later or tomorrow is a better time to sew.