Take it down a notch (size)

I recently bought a few maternity blouses. A white one and a lovely teal one in the same style - I think it's teal. Either way, they are too big.

But, Deece, why would they be too big - why didn't you just buy the correct size? Because I ordered them online and from the buyers' reviews, it seemed like a good idea to order the next size up.

Well, it wasn't a good idea. It was a bad idea. Because now I'm taking the shirts apart and attempting to take them down a size. Okay, Deece, no big deal, just make the adjustments.

Well, it is a big deal. It's a big deal because I have no idea what I'm doing.

Here is the before, we'll see what happens after:

Forget the Frock, Dig the Dress

I'm not a fan of the word "frock". Am I the only one who thinks it makes a pretty dress sound like an ugly garment?

I refuse to call a dress a frock. I don't want to make frocks, I want to make dresses. I want to make the visions in my mind come alive through beautiful fabrics. I want to wear yellow dresses, blue dresses, polka dot dresses.

I'll get there one day. But for now . . .

 

Hooray for finally getting it right!

In the past, when I wanted a blind hem I would just do it by hand. But that wasn't very often. Mostly because I didn't often have a need for a blind hem, but also because I just didn't trust the strength and quality of my hand hem. I could do it and question how long it would hold or I could pay someone else to do it and know that it would hold up long term.

And then one day I decided to try out the blind hem stitch on my machine. And it worked! Sort of.

I knew I was doing it wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to do it right. I couldn't figure out how to make it work according to the picture in my sewing machine manual. Maybe it wasn't technically correct, but it was conceptually correct and it got the job done. And so for the past few years, whenever I needed a blind hem, I would just do it on my machine.

But it always bugged me that I couldn't do it right.

Well, today I figured it out! I don't know that I did a great job, but I'm so glad that I figured it out.



You know what else I figured out? That I was not only folding the fabric incorrectly, I was also using the wrong foot. My machine, and maybe yours too, came with a blind hem foot - and I knew that, but I guess I forgot until today. The foot is really helpful because it has an adjustable guide to help you keep your hem straight and even.

Even with the correct fold and foot, it was still pretty tricky for me to keep the hem going properly, but I'm sure more practice will help me do it better. I'm thinking about posting the process in more detail because the few tutorials I've seen were still really confusing.