Monday, December 28, 2015

A dress from salvaged scraps no one else wanted

How many times have I said it that I love making new things out of stuff no one else wanted? Well, I don't think I can say it enough, so I'm saying it again: I love making new things out of stuff no one else wanted! :P

In my last post I mentioned I bought a bag of fabric from the fabric store for 5 euros. Most pieces were scraps and fabric pieces that had discoloration or huge holes they'd cut out as samples at the factory. Among that bag of fabric was this mess:



It's a dark blue knit jersey that's in several pieces. Some spots are missing the print stars, others had white stripes running across them, most pieces had seams sewn into them across the fabric (I don't know why. If someone does, please tell me!), and sometimes the seams were on the right side of the fabric. All in all, it was a big pile of "no one's ever going to use this crap", so naturally I had to.

I got inspired by this dress someone linked in a sewing group that I'm part of on Facebook.

Image from the above link.


So I drafted something like this:



There were rough measurements on the site, but I just measured myself and adjusted the "pattern" accordingly. Around the chest, shoulder to desired hem length, around my hips and desired length of sleeve.

Then I cut out the pieces from my scraps. I could have cut the pieces avoiding the visible seams on the right side of the fabric, or the white stripes, but instead I decided to incorporate them into the dress for a more interesting look.

I only used my serger for this dress, so it was quite fast to make. I serged the pockets onto the side seams, then serged the raglan sleeves onto the bodice pieces like for example in this tutorial here and finally serged the seam down from wrist to hem. Add cuffs to the hem, neckline and ends of sleeves (a video tutorial of that by Annika Victoria here), and my dress was done!

I made the main pieces from the star patterned stuff, leaving one on-the-outside seam on the front and giving one sleeve some white stripes. I made the cuffs with the portion that was missing the stars altogether, and this is what came out of the ordeal:









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So, what do you think of this scrap pieces dress? I'm loving the carefree look that the extra seams and discoloration give. I feel like the dress would be boring without these little details. What do you think? Yay or nay? :)

love,
scoundrel