Kwik Sew 3915 Finished, and What's Next

Well, I pooped out Thursday and Friday nights and didn't finish my top until this morning, but it's done and that's all that matters. Here's how I plan to wear it. I'll get  a pic of me in the outfit after I've hit the shower. I think it makes a nice Florida summer outfit and I know I'll be glad to get this skirt back in the rotation.

The neckband gathers were only a little fiddly and that's mostly because (a) I needed to lessen the gathering distance vs. the pattern notches because I wanted a little more fullness where the gathers gather, and (b) gathers always mean a LOT of pins.

I didn't follow the construction instructions for the neckband, even though Kwik Sew instructions are always pretty good. KS instructed to first make the gathers and then join the inner and outer neckbands at the neck seam, which I did. Then you are supposed to tie off the gathering stitches at the bodice edge of the outer band and then stitch it single-layer onto the bodice. Then press the seam allowance toward the neckband. Then sew the inner band by stitching in the ditch of the first joining seam. That's really an OK method, but I didn't want to mess with my gathers that much and I didn't want the lump of the seam allowances *inside* the neckband, because in this solid cotton/Lycra knit it would definitely show.

So instead, I did my gathers, joined the bands at the neck seam RS together, flipped them RS out (pressed and understitched also per KS), and then pinned both outer and inner bands together and joined them as one. I then stitched the unfinished edges together so they wouldn't shift, giving me more control over the gathers, and attached the whole neckband unit to the bodice in one pass. I pressed the seam allowances outward and coverstitched. If I didn't have a coverstitch machine, I would've just topstitched once.

Above, you can see the inside of the neckband. Sure, you can see the seam allowances but who cares. It's still not an awful finish and it's a tee shirt, not a couture gown. And if I didn't use glaring white looper thread, it would blend.

As a final lazy step instead of trimming, I made a deep hem. It's lazy, yes, but it will also lay better in the long run.

So, next up is a dress. One of my coworkers has a couple of very plain (design-wise, not fabric-wise) sleeveless shift dresses. I really like them. They look so effortless to wear in our heat and  humidity and yet she still looks so pulled together. I couldn't copy them exactly because with my boobage, that kind of dress will hang like a tent off the girls and people will wonder when the baby is due.

I went through my on-deck pattern pile to look for a candidate for the dress in my mind's eye. Of course, I couldn't find EXACTLY what I wanted but a few have some potential. The first pull yielded these. Which I then whittled down for various reasons.

The two finalists are ...M6397, below, and ...

V8764, here.

Both are multi-cup sized, a definite plus. Both have minimal seaming, another plus for my lazy self, but enough seams to provide some shaping opportunities. The McCall's has pockets (yay!) and a cool vertical (slimming) zip down the front. The minuses are (a) the McCall's may need some neckline altering to make it a true sleeveless dress instead of a jumper (pinnie to non-Americans!) and do I already have a suitable zip??, and (b) the Vogue isn't sleeveless and that neckline may be too wide. I think these obstacles would be easy enough to overcome, if needed, and so now I just have to decide which one will be The One. Maybe I should go read up on them over at PR.


Parting Shot: My laundry room, as I wait for the parts to come to fix my dryer. Apparently Tropical Storm Debby fried its power supply when she took down our power and it needs some fixin'. These are Alex's clothes. I don't believe I've ever hung his undies on hangers before. ;-) My clothes are up next, but since I wear so many knits, they'll do just fine hanging dry. Truthfully, I should probably dry most of my clothes this way all the time. I am glad, though, that I have such a big laundry room here and that it came with these shelves pre-installed. Makes for easy hang-drying. (Outside, with our humidity, is out of the question. Clothes would NEVER dry out there.)