Moving on! This is
Jamie Christina’s Mission Maxi dress that is much beloved out there in home
sewing land. Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow even dedicated an entire week of Me
Made May 2014 to it. I’ve had this in my pattern stash for a while
and now that the temperatures are heating up I figured it was a good time to
try it out.
I started off with the tank version to check out how it
fits. I used some leftover turquoise
wicking mesh thinking it would make a nice running tank. I made this mostly on my serger except for
topstitching the bands on my regular sewing machine with a longer stitch
length. Not my best topstitching, but
close enough for a wearable muslin most likely to be regulated to workout
gear. And I couldn’t be bothered to
break out my double needle to properly hem it.
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| Always important to crop booty shorts when Seattle pale! |
As is I think it fits pretty well, no obvious pulls,
bagginess or tightness. I wore it around
the house to make sure it was comfortable and traced out the maxi length on the
pattern. Someday hopefully soon I’ll
actually get around to the maxi length.
I had a yard of this orange printed interlock I got last
winter when I bought some jersey online for my Mom’s Christmas gift. It was one of those times when you love a
fabric online but are a bit disappointed when you see it in person. I knew it didn’t have much stretch (15%) but
the printed design was super stiff and cheap feeling – even after prewashing it
didn’t feel much different. I knew it
wouldn’t work for the top I intended it for and so it sat in limbo in my stash. This was a real shame because I really loved
the print. On a whim I pulled it out and
decided I’d try it out knowing I wouldn’t be heartbroken if it didn’t work.
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| Ignore the bra strap - I forgot my convertible |
I laid out my pattern pieces and cut them out, preserving
as much length as possible. I moved the
pattern piece up and used the curved bottom edge to cut the hem. The stiffness of the fabric made me doubt it
would fold nicely for the binding when I remembered my royal blue Renfrew. I held the Renfrew next to the orange print
and discovered that it matched the blue leaves exactly. I dug through my knits scrap bag and pulled
out what little royal blue interlock I had left. I just used my rotatory cutter and clear
ruler and cut strips as long as I possibly could, counting on the stretch to
make up the difference.
Finally! A good
reason to hoard hold onto those little knit scraps that I couldn’t even
cut a pair of underwear out of. Although
now that I think of it I could probably cut some Plantain elbow patches out of
them too…
This time around I used my sewing machine to sew the
shoulder seams instead of my serger. Last
time when topstitching the binding, it got a little fiddly going over that
serged seam. By sewing it I was able to press the seam open and that made everything
much flatter to sew over. I also sewed
the shoulder and side seams before attaching the binding in the round. I even went so far as to switch from white to
blue serger thread before working on the binding. I realized I was out of matching blue thread
until I pulled out the spools that came with my serger. Maybe not the strongest thread, but it worked
pretty well for topstitching the binding.
Then it was over to the ironing board to blast the binding with steam to
tighten everything up.
I did a lot of thinking before deciding on what thread
color to hem the dress with. I tried the
blue I used for topstitching and white on a scrap but wasn’t really thrilled
with either one. That’s when I
remembered I had a spool of orange thread originally used for topstitching a
bag I made years ago. I recently used it
to attach binding to a baby blanket so I had a bobbin filled up and
everything. I used a twin needle for the
hem and the thread blended in perfectly with all of the oranges.
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| I bet you can’t tell which side I redid! |
I immediately tried my new finished dress on and discovered
that somehow it had magically softened up some more and didn’t seem so stiff
anymore. Maybe it was the steam… I did notice that it stuck out a bit by the
arms which I didn’t notice with my tank.
At first I thought I hadn’t stretched the arm binding enough so took the
time and effort to rip out the topstitching and serging. I took two inches out off, reattached and
topstitched it. After trying it on again,
I really didn’t notice much difference so I haven’t bothered to do the other
side yet. I’m blaming the lack of
stretch in the knit.
In the end I’m really pleased how this dress turned out,
especially since I had low expectations.
I got a lot of comments on it when I wore it on the last day of Me Made
May. As a bonus I have the option of
wearing it with the matching Renfrew for a separates look. Plus the thicker interlock does wonders for
avoiding VPL. I can see making more of
these to wear this summer as the go together so quickly and don’t take much
fabric at all. In fact, I’m even
planning on conquering my irrational suspicion of maxi dresses and making the
pattern as originally intended. I just need to figure out what shoes to wear
with it. My initial thought is platform
sandals but maybe flats/sandals would be more practical? What type of shoes are you supposed to wear
with maxis?
