Party dress

I made this party dress last night for one of my friend's daughters (please excuse poor photograph). It's been on my to do list since before Christmas. It's a man's shirt turned into a girl's dress from a great tutorial I found online here. It's the third one I've made but unusually the first two were more successful I think in spite (or perhaps because) of my NEW SEWING MACHINE! Sorry, I didn't mean to shout, I'm just so excited to have a brand new sewing machine that sews in straight lines and doesn't continually sew wads of cotton into the underside of the garment.

Don't get me wrong, I adore my old machine which is not actually mine but my Grandmother's 60's Husqvarna 60 20 that I appropriated from my mother (who just bought me the new one). We used to joke that my Grandmother had the first Husqvarna in Bendigo, which was funny because my family raced motorbikes and cars and Husqvarna are probably more well known for motorcycles than sewing machines; and because of the image of my grandma on a motorbike. Anyway, any faults I could attribute to the machine are my own for two reasons: I do not know how to sew; and I can't recall the machine ever having a service. So before returning the Husky to Mum I'm going to have it serviced by a nice man named Barry I googled in Ringwood. I might link him up and say a bit more about him after I've visited him.

So, back to the dress. I found it a bit difficult to find a suitable shirt for the conversion, which is hardly surprising given that patterns for men's shirts and girl's dresses do tend to differ somewhat. I eventually chose plain white with a nice texture (what's that called when the pattern is in the texture of the fabric? Self something?) and after a couple of weeks I cut it up into the shapes I needed to make the dress. Then it sat there like that for weeks, occasionally being moved around because it was in the way. I eventually got to it last night and turned it into something that was not quite a dress or a top and fitted me! Refusing to give up and go to bed as any sensible person would I cut right up the side seams, repinned it, made it a better (smaller) shape and resewed it. I was so over it by the end that I just guessed the shoulder strap length figuring it could be adjusted later and heck the dress might not fit anyway!

Verdict: Sewing machine - fantastic especially since I haven't read the manual. Easy to use straight out of the box even by a non-sewer. Lovely, straight seams and good tension. I even enjoyed trying a few different stitches. Dress - jury's out. We'll have to see if it fits the girl and if she likes it.