Warning: I spent 3 hours sewing a dress wrong because I skipped the mockup step

I finally sat down last Saturday to make this fancy wrap dress I've been dreaming about for months. I picked this really nice rayon fabric from a shop in Portland that cost me $28 a yard, so I was already on edge about messing it up. But I got impatient and decided to skip making a muslin mockup because I thought I knew the pattern well enough. After cutting everything out and sewing the bodice together, I realized the darts were hitting way too low and the whole thing just hung weird. I unpicked all those seams and it took me like 45 minutes just to fix one side. Now I'm out that time and I have to buy more fabric because my first cut is too short to salvage. Has anyone else had a project totally wrecked by not taking the time to do a test version first?

2 comments

2 Comments

aaron_wilson1721d ago

Honestly, the bedsheet trick lee_butler mentioned is exactly what saved me last year. I was about to cut into some expensive linen for a shirt and forced myself to run up a quick toile from an old flat sheet first. Turned out the armhole was way too tight and the shoulders were totally off, so I fixed those before touching the good fabric. Now I always buy a cheap cotton sheet at the thrift store for like $3 whenever I start a new pattern.

lee_butler21d ago

Honestly I've been there and now I always make a quick toile out of old bedsheets first. It saves so much time and heartache even if it feels like a waste at first.