Tiers and Tribulations

Sharing the good, the bad and the downright ugly today!

Starting on a positive note, I made a lovely winter maxi dress back in January which I've only just got round to taking a few snaps of.

It all came about because Saint+Sofia kept spamming me with advertising - and well I just copied their dress. Sorry guys. Don't dress spam a sewist. 

The dress in question was a long sleeved jersey maxi with some asymmetrical tiers. The top was easily achieved with my trusty (and often used) Union Tee pattern. The tiers I just cut some wonky rectangles and pieced it all together! Not much more to say on that one I'm afraid. BUT just after I made this, Sew Essential brought out a Youtube video with instructions to make the same. So if you fancy a go, hop over to her channel. Also Sew Over It then brought out the Nomi dress which I think is also very similar. (The first one is free though 😉).

I looovvvvee the dress though it's warm, flowy, comfortable and completely appealed to my 90's grunge love of teenage years. 

The fabric is glorious. I cannot get over how amazing the fabric feels. Like warm stretchy silk. This is the Mind the Maker viscose jersey called 'Stray Lines' which I bought on Minerva and it really is worth every penny. If I feel spendy again in future I'd definitely pick up some more as this is quality on a roll.

The asymmetry of the dress does however get lost in the print and it's difficult to actually see. None the less I still like it.

Going with the gothy theme I figured this was a suitable label for this dress. It does have very witchy vibes. Especially when Bagel cat comes to inspect the work. 

Now if you're still here I'll show you where this all starts to go a bit wrong!

As it is still cold out, I figured a cropped cardigan would be a good solution to wear over my new found love of winter dresses. I picked out the True Bias Marlo cardigan for it's shape, but this time sized down from a 16 to a 12 as the last couple of versions were unwearable. 

The result was ok on it's own. The fabric unfortunately was synthetic which is not the best quality - I was expecting the nice cotton version I'd used previously but my fault for not reading the description properly. 

I popped it on with the dress and things went from Grunge to Grandma really quick. 

Shirley Manson to Shirley Nanson you might say. Bit of a fail I think. Just not for me.

Things then descended further with a truly awful cobra dress. I'd loved my black tier dress so much I wanted to make another. The Curse of the 2nd make hit though.

 Dress how I dislike you - let me count the ways. 

My main gripe is how utterly thin the fabric is. It's see-through. I usually like Lady McElroy Cobra Corsage (as you can see here and here) but wow this jersey version is terrible quality. 

It's so flimsy that any amount of weight, i.e anything below the waist, just pulls it right down and makes the already not black fabric, even less black. It's supposed to look like this:

The sleeves are baggy, the proportions are all off and basically - it's going back to the drawing board to see if I can salvage some of the fabric

Win some you lose some!

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