Ok, I find myself in a little predicament but that's ok, predicaments happen when you sew! I have been wanting a shirt dress for quite some time now! So I sewed up this dress on last week using this lovely, flowy floral fabric in my stash which I grabbed from Hancock's months ago (pre-closing announcement). I was trying to find a suitable pattern and opted to go with
McCall 6885, a great shirt dress pattern that's technically intended for a slightly rigid fabric such as a cotton although crepe is listed as a recommended fabric. I used this pattern nonetheless since it has the basic shape I was going for. Long story short I ran into some "fit" complications. I tried the dress on and
it seems I'm going to have to do some special modifications to make it look the way I want to, some not necessarily recommended in the pattern but as a sewing professional I feel inclined to do. And hence my dress is currently on "life support"............you know that weird place of either turning out really good or ending up as a failed garment.
What's so funny is that yearsssssss ago when I was a newbie sewer a situation like this would've sent me into a "tail spin". My first line of action would've been to toss the dress out entirely. I would've panicked, gotten frustrated and gotten frustrated to the point where I'd threaten to give up sewing LOLLLL---well that last part only lasted a minute and I was back to sewing LOLLLLL! And trust me , although I'm way more experienced now, I still may be prone to toss something nowadays if it doesn't turn out exactly as intended and isn't worth the effort. But it's nice to be at a place where I know how to make modifications in my sewing that can transform clothes to my liking. Situations like these don't frustrate me and I recognize my options.
In Short, here's what I've learned about how to handle a garment on "Life Support"......
1. Don't panic---when does it ever help??? LOL
2. Evaluate the garment's "stats"--- is there a strong heartbeat or a flatline? Does it seem like something you can save or not? If a flatline then let it go, toss it out and work on something else. If a heartbeat---or the possibility that you can make it work then proceed to do so. Put it on "life support" and do everything you can to save it! It's in these time that you find your true creativity and test your ingenuity in clothing construction/design! I've had my best ideas in these moments!!!
3a. Proudly wear your garment if the save is successful!!! You deserve to! You fought for it and made it work---CONGRATS!!!!
3b. If not then it's ok to take your garment off life support. You gave it your best shot but sometimes you can't save every problematic garment! Learn the lessons and move on. They will make you a BETTER sewer! It's that simple and technically that's the best part!
So I'm going to do my best to "save" this dress! I've got some great ideas in mind and not much is needed to correct the fit. Of course I originally intended to add a tie belt (not pictured) and will make some other changes. We'll see how it look. If all goes well I'll be delighted and will post soon!
So my question for you is how do you deal with your garments that end up on "life support"---do you usually toss them out or work to fix the problems???
