Super Online Sewing Match: Community Match Marianne Dress

I'm back at it and sewing for round two of the Super Online Sewing Match Community Match. The pattern that they chose for round two is the Marianne dress from Christine Haynes. Much like the Sutton Blouse from round one, the Marianne is not a pattern I would naturally gravitate towards. Part of what I love though about strictly following along with the SOSM contest patterns is altering the chosen pattern to be something that will get some play in my wardrobe.

I had a hard time figuring out how I was going to tailor this project to my personal taste. What I decided was that I would use the two-tone look of look B, but sleeveless like look A. I found my base fabric in my stash, it's an Art Gallery Knit called Stamped Grove Daylight. I got it the last time I was in Boston and went to Grey's Fabric. I was hoping to find a lightweight semi-sheer fabric for the top and then I wanted to continue part of the pattern of the dress into the yoke with some hand embroidery. I found the contrast fabric at JoAnn's, it's a light ivory sweater knit.

First step was to cut my pattern out. Once I marked the pattern, cut it, and I could move on to my hand embroidery. It makes it easier to do the hand embroidery before you put the pattern together. With the sweater knit being slightly sheer I could lay it over the pattern fabric and mark the pattern on the front of the front yoke pattern piece. 

One of the important things that I've found with hand embroidery, especially with sheer fabric, is to keep the traveling stitches on the back neat. I don't want to put all this hard work in on the front only to have a thread explosion on the back.

The pattern calls for the use of clear elastic on the shoulder seams and I haven't used that before. I didn't have any and I briefly entertained just rolling forward without it, but instead I popped out to JoAnn's and bought myself some clear elastic. Let me say that I am so glad that I did. The stability it provided to the shoulder of the dress was amazing. This sweater knit is stretchier than the jersey I'm using on the bottom and I was worried about the shoulders stretching out. With the clear elastic in there I need not worried anymore!

One problem that I ran into with this pattern was the neck banding. The sweater knit stretches a little different than a jersey knit, when I stretched it the banding became too thin and hard to put through the serger. What I did was to recut the neck banding 2.5" longer. That little bit of extra fabric made all the difference. It went around the neck edge beautifully.

I attached the fronts and backs of the bottom of the dress to the yoke and I was excited to see how well the pattern matched up to embroidery that I did. It's all coming together!

Once the bottoms were on there were only side seams and hems left. I put the side seams together and then I popped it on. It was a little too shapeless for me so I nipped it in at the waist and bust. I don't know that I would've made a different size all over but I could've definitely used a smaller size through the bust and waist even though I like the flow over the hip. I made a size 6 but I probably could have made a size 2 at the waist a size 4 at the bust and kept the size 6 at the hip. The size at the hip could've gone smaller if I wanted it more fitted but I like the flow of the skirt.

I used my regular machine to do the hems on the sleeves and the skirts. I do have a coverstitch machine and I entertained using it but honestly I didn't want to set it up. I was also worried about using it on the light weight sweater knit. I know that is lazy but the zig zag looks great! I will say that the pattern was pretty short. I am 5'2" and know that if I were much taller this would be a tunic top rather than a dress. To my tall sewcialists out there, be advised, you may want to lengthen it a touch.

I set up my camera and did a little mini photo shoot in the studio. It's a cute dress! It went together SO fast, with the exception of the time for the hand embroidery, I think this dress could've gone together in an hour. I also think that this would make a great top shortened. I'm glad I embraced this pattern. It was really fun!

Yeah I did the embroidery by hand, because I don't like machine embroidery (period)!

***Disclaimer: My above stated aversion to machine embroidery was a bit aggressive, I was feeling a little heated and for that I apologize.***

As I said in a previous post I am working on a new a-line skirt for the competition on SewMamaSew. I told a woman at a fabric store that I was embroidering the hem and then I showed her.  I pulled out what I was working on and she exclaimed, "Oh you're embroidering by hand! Well thats not very practical, what could you sell it for?"

Ok I'm sorry, sometimes its not about what I could "sell it for" because I'm not making it to sell.  I making it for myself to enrich my wardrobe and display my creative side.  Maybe that's something that happens when you own a business, even one creatively based, you stop seeing art and start seeing dollar signs.  I don't usually like to knock the way another cat swings, but I am really tired of having my passion quantified for the dollar value.

One more rant/tangent.  I do not really like machine embroidery.  I think that it looks grannyish and very unhip. I know this is coming from a girl who thinks sewing is a rip roaring good night, but still, I hate it. I think that it looks flat and well machine made, I know obviously, but I think it lacks the artistry of hand embroidery.  I know that I am ranting but I was honestly a little but offended.

Ok, I'm cool now, I'll tell you how I'm doing it.  I started with a floral silhouette and used graphite to transfer it to my fabric.  There are transfer papers you can use to transfer your images to your fabric but, I didn't have any so I had to be creative/ I was too lazy to drive out to get some.  I took a pencil, I used a 9H because I find that the softer pencil makes it easier to shade the whole back of the image.

I drew out the outline of my pattern piece onto my fabric, but I didn't cut it out on the line yet,  I am going to wait till it's all embroidered and pretty.  Turning the image with the right side facing up I placed it there I wanted it just off center front.  I then took the same 9H pencil and traced the image which transferred the image to the fabric.

I used the corner and side edge of the paper and lined them up with a line I drew down center front of the pattern piece and a cross hatch to match where the corner should hit.  I made these marks because I wanted to transfer my design to both sides of center front and I want it to be symmetrical.  I did have to go back in after my transfer and redraw some of my lines that transferred too faintly.

In order to transfer the mirror image I flipped over the paper with the right side now facing down.  I matched the center line and the hatch mark with the proper corner and edge of the page.  Though I can't see the face of the image the lines I traced the first time are raised on the back of the paper.  I then retraced those lines and because I used a pencil on the front side by retracing those lines I transferred a mirrored version of the image.

Voila symmetrical mirror image pattern transfer.

Now for the embroidery itself. If you are looking for some really great stitch tutorials, I suggest Sublime Stitching's tutorials.  *Side note: They also sell some really great embroidery patterns.  They do paper patterns as well as PDFs*

I wanted my embroidery to use lots of different stitches and techniques so I taught myself a few different ones.  I also liked the effect of combining different colors of floss to create more dimensionality.

Here is a close up of one of my process shots.

My pattern was a little bit bigger than my hoop so I had to move it to complete my whole piece.  So here is the first half:

Now I just have to repeat this pattern on the opposite side to complete my skirt.  Once I get that done I'll post my finished skirt.  Stay tuned!