Time for a little Me Made May update. I did manage to wear me made outfits three times this week, but there hasn’t been much variety and I have realised that I can not really combine those items with anything else. The wardrobe remains unsorted but it really has to be done until next Thursday.

So I have mainly been busy working on a dress. I was looking for  a breastfeeding friendly dress. I have used “breastfeeding friendly” a few times in my last posts but what does it actually mean? It is just a normal piece that allows to breastfeed a child without taking the whole thing off. My prefered choice is the two layer look, one up one down. Obviously with a normal dress this would be a bit difficult….

So, I was looking for something with buttons and found The Vintage Shirt Dress by Sew over it.

I bought a lovely vintage-y fabric with cherry print in Goldhawk Road but ended up making a very quick calico version first to not waste the trial fabric and to see if it would actually fit me. As usual, the dress would have been too wide at the shoulders and I also decided to make the skirt just a tiny bit narrower to even out the different sizes my body actually needs. I also decided to use a plain colour for the colour and the facings as I had seen one lovely version somewhere on Pinterest. As it turns out my alterations let me cut out so much more effectively that I saved roughly a meter of fabric.

But enough talking, let’s have a look. (Note: I had to use the self-timer with the camera balancing on some books)

So it is definitely a wearable trial version but lets use it to improve the next version. I am not sure about the green collar.

I think black would have been better but guess what, I do not own black fabric.However, the buttons in black just show it would have been the better choice. Plus, I am not sure anymore if a contrasting collar is really what I want.

The waist is a bit too high, after the photo session I pushed down the belt to where I think my waist really sits and I liked the look much more. So I might make the bodice an inch longer and the skirt a bit shorter.

The finish of the armholes with the bias tape at the inside was new for me. When I read the description I got confused and decided to follow step by step. Apart from cutting my own bias binding. I felt that would be a waste of that lovely fabric. I realised that my shop bought bias binding was slightly wider than the requested 4cm so I decided to trim it and ended up pressing the bias binding flat to make sure it had no more folds! (Title No 1), then I trimmed it and followed the instructions from there.

I really don’t like it, I am not sure if it is only my fault, there was a lot of tension on the binding and I am not sure if it would be that easy to slip stitch it. I might try again on a little sample before ruining the next dress 🙂

I guess you are by now really excited to learn the reason for the danger of the seam ripper title, so if you feel you are strong enough, here it comes:

I had just finished the second button-hole and opened it with the seam ripper when I slipped and slashed the whole dress open over a length of about 4cm. Great.This has been my first ever button hole accident and I usually cut it open with scissors. Sometimes huge fabric scissors. Never ever anything has happened.

I fixed it quickly with two layers of interfacing in between main fabric and facing and then I panicked and zigzagged over it. Maybe I should have thought about other options first. It is not too visible but there might have been a more discrete option. And it is just one of these things, no one might notice but I know it is there.

Up until that incident I thought this might actually be the dress for the baptism not just a trial version. But now that there is this mistake sitting on my waist, I will just keep thinking of it and that zigzag line with eventually burn a huge hole into my dress. We will see if I consider it suitable for the school run. I would definitely get a few looks. After all they only know me as a trousers and top kind of person. I definitely like making dresses much more than actually wearing them.

But enough of me, I’ll send this over to RUMS and will then have a look if others have made things to wear or trial onlys.