So, I got my tax return from the IRS and aside from, you know, paying for school and gas, I thought I'd splurge a bit. I needed a new pair of jeans for one, my newest pair is well over a year old and most of my older pairs are not looking their best anymore. I also thought I could use a new sun dress, but I wa not to crazy about the options available in my local stores, plus I have difficulty finding things small enough that also fit the chest. So I did what anyone with a bit of sewing experience would do, I decided to make my own! I've done it before, see?
As you can (hopefully!) tell, the one I made before came out decently well and I still have it, though I've gained a bit of weight since I was 19 so it's a little snug now, but still wearable. I also still have the pattern, but spaghetti straps are a pain to make and I thought I'd like to try a different style. So after I went to a local hunter/farmer attire store to acquire some exorbitantly priced jeans, I hupped to my local fabric store a few doors down and bought just about everything I need for a new dress for 1/4 the price of the jeans.
I bought a "See & Sew" pattern (the small business fabric store only carries 2 lines of patterns) for $3, it claims to be "easy", which is what I need. Now I could have easily just used the other pattern and saved $3, but like I said I wanted to try one without spaghetti straps. I found some pretty cotton fabric on the sale rack so 2 yards cost me $4.30. A coordinating 18" zipper cost $1.75. And the pattern also called for .5 yards of facing, which cost $1. All together this cost just over $10. Now If I didn't have some required items at home already, it might have crept up to $15. The pattern also calls for "trim", but its more decorative and thus not required, though I may purchase some at a later date. The old lady who owns the fabric store was very helpful and invited me to come down if I run into trouble with the dress making.
The final bits and bobs needed for this project, these I already had so they cost me nothing for this dress construction! I will be using a sewing machine as well, but I wasn't lugging it out for a picture. For making a dress you need sewing shears, basically just scissors that are only used for sewing, cutting paper/hair can dull the blades and thus make it hard to cut the fabric neatly. Mine came from wal-mart and probably cost lest than $5, though I bought then 5 years ago. Thread is also useful for sewing stuff, I'm just going to use a basic white, though a blue would work as well. Straight pins for holding the pattern in place on the fabric as you cut/trace it and a sewing needle for those instances where a machine would just not work so well, like for buttons or, in this case, a hook and eye. You could also hand sew everything if you really wanted, but I'm too impatient for that. Hooks and eyes are necessary for the dress, I have some left over form the last time, these are pretty cheap though if you don't have any. I also have special "dressmakers" marking pencils which are nice for marking the fabric for seems and such, but a regular pencil could work in a pinch...no pens though, those marks don't wash out if you make a mistake.
So there you have it, my stuff to make a dress. I could have easily gone to a big box store for materials, but I like supporting local businesses when I can, my home town has so few as it is. Check back for updates on this project. I have pattern pieces to cut out!
No comments:
Post a Comment