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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Adelaide in chambray

I didn't even know it was "Pattern of the month" when I selected the Adelaide pattern with my Seamwork credits. Nice!  And this is only the first of two I've made...
I really wanted another chambray shirt dress after I chopped off this one to make a top (scroll down the page a bit), so I bought a bunch of chambray fabric at Stonemountain and Daughter.  I still haven't found the perfect shirt dress pattern, so when I saw Adelaide, I thought it was a good stop-gap for the summer.
As a student in Apparel Production, I looked at the printed pattern and immediately recognized some issues.  The back arm scythe was shaped a little weird (see above, the original line is the solid blue line and dotted white line) so I redrew it to have a more shallow curve.
Additionally, the seam at the shoulder strap was angled the wrong way, at least for the smaller sizes (see pattern section, above). I really can't fathom why the shoulder seam would angle up for the smaller sizes and angle down for the larger sizes.  In any case, it should angle down, so I redrew that, too.   Final alteration was to reduce the bust dart intake, for a quick-and-dirty small bust adjustment.
After the minor adjustments, I sewed up the pattern as written and it fits beautifully!  For sizing, I went with size 0, grading to 2 at the hips.  In the end, I don't think I needed to grade up, but having a row of snaps down the front made me want to allow for a bit more wiggle room.  No one at the boys' school or the grocery store wants to see a peep show, so best to be a little conservative.  
Speaking of snaps...I've always used the standard blue pound-it-with-a-hammer snap tool.  I hate that thing for so many reasons.  So I splurged (with my 40% off coupon at Joann's) to buy the next level up in snap tools (kudos to Shams for going all the way!).  Holy crap, kids, how did I live without this?  It makes applying snaps FUN.  And QUIET.  Seriously, guys; fun AND quiet.  I planned another Adelaide so I could apply more snaps (and bought specialty colored ones to match my garment!).  Then, I applied snaps to the cuffs of the top chopped from my former shirtdress. I {heart} snap pliers.  
Initially, I thought the dress did a good job of hiding my bra straps, but then I saw this photo (above), so I'll modify that to say that it does an OK job at hiding bra straps.  Certainly better than most tank-style dresses, so that's cool.  
Overall, I'm really happy with this garment.  It's a work-horse type of dress for me.  Something I can wear to the park, class, strawberry picking (like I did on Mother's Day, in this dress, in the mud), woodworking (like I did today in my son's Kinder class, in this dress, a mere three days after I wore it last), cycling (well, maybe next week) or cleaning toilets, and feel comfy the whole time. Multifunctional, I tell you!  Final words: by the snap pliers, and, I'd definitely recommend this dress, with the caveat that I had to make some drafting changes to the pattern.  Once my navy blue snaps arrive (tomorrow!), I'll be done with version 2!








8 comments:

  1. You ended up with a very cute dress, wonky pattern pieces notwithstanding!

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    1. Thank you! It's fast to sew and fits well, so I have to keep from making a dozen of them!

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  2. It's cute and I love the snap/chambray combo but really that drafting is bizarre and really quite disappointing from an established pattern company. I meant to try the Callie Faye tank dress this summer gone but ran out of time - have you seen it?

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    1. I haven't even heard of Callie Faye! Jeez, all these designers I don't know about. Her tank is really cute, though maybe a bit low-cut for me. Her skirts are cute, too! Nice how casual they are!

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  3. that is so cute - it is my ideal of a great summer dress. by the way - I think all the sleeves/armholes on Colette patterns is wonky (translation: terrible!) and they are guaranteed to cause problems. but you solved it.

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    1. I can definitely see you wearing this!

      What's crazy is that I received a message from Colette today saying that the pattern had been redrafted at the armhole, and I could download the revised version! Clearly, it had nothing to do with my complaint here, but apparently I wasn't the only one annoyed with that part of the pattern!

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  4. Looks really comfy!! Loce chambray and your blog!

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    1. It IS really comfy--I love it! Thank you!

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