Mistakes In My Sewing Journey

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Mistakes are inevitable. While I've been making this custom dress, I've made plenty of mistakes that I've had to creatively problem-solve. Let's talk about some of those mistakes and what solutions worked or didn't work!

When I was laying and cutting the pattern for this fabric, I included lining. I cut the lining first, then pinned it to the fashion fabric (the blue satin), and then basted the pattern pieces together. For the bodice of the dress, it has four pieces: the top piece (over the breast) and the three pieces below that create a higher waist. In the top piece, I needed to add some extra padding so my client did not have to wear a bra with the dress. Once I added in the padding, which was taken from an old bathing suit top, I stitched together the two lining pieces and the fashion fabric. When this bodice piece was attached to the remaining pieces of the bodice, there was a pucker in the bodice where the padding was added. This pucker was quite pronounced when my client tried on the dress and we zipped and laced it up.

To fix this pucker, I enlisted in the help from a seamstress who has a vast experience in wedding dresses. Together we took apart the bodice and began to see that the fabric was releasing the pucker and wanting to return to its original state before it was sewn together. With this information, we determined that helping the fabric return to its original state would help ease the pucker when it was stitched again. I steamed the bodice, ironed it, and then placed weights on the fabric to help it relax. I performed these multiple times over three days and by the third day, the fabric had relaxed enough to be stitched again without a pucker!

Another issue I ran into with this lovely custom dress was water stains and small snags in the grain. The water stains occurred occasionally when I would steam the dress, if a water stain happened, I discovered that it could be gently taken out with a soft ironing (with a cloth on top of the fashion fabric and beneath the iron) and with a soft bristled brush. I would iron the water stain first and then brush over it, usually doing this a few times would help the water stain to disappear. When a small snag in the grain appeared, I would use the soft bristled brush to gently brush the snag out without cutting any threads. This allowed the grain to release the snag without much force and the fabric would be somewhat forgiving and there were no indications a snag was ever there!

These are only two issues that I ran into with this custom dress, but there were so many more. Lots of issues with this fabric taught me how to creatively work through the mistakes and problems that were presented. I loved making this dress and I can't wait to make more in this fabric and continue learning how to work with this fabric with care and love!