Sew along, day 5: Catch up day!

There won't be anything new today. Tomorrow, I'll go through cutting out your actual fabric in preparation for sewing. This won't be too different than cutting out your fabric for the muslin, but remember, you have to cut out double (for the lining and the dress) as well as cut out the ruffle. 


In preparation for tomorrow, you should have your tailored pattern all ready to go. I'd recommend tissue paper or packing paper because then you can easily transfer marks from the pattern to the fabric since your fabric pen will bleed through.


If you have any questions so far, just post them as comments!

Mediterranean Beet Salad

I promised to post this about a week ago, but with the sew along and weddings to attend, I haven't had much time! I made this beet recipe from the New York Times with the beets from the first week of my CSA. My friend had made it last year for the 4th of July.


I followed this recipe exactly (except for one mistake, which I'll describe here). I cut the recipe down to a quarter, which was plenty for me (and the max I could make with my one large beet). The recipe says you can use either sherry vinegar, white wine vinegar, or cider vinegar--I chose cider. Finally, the recipe calls for roasted beets. Well I went ahead and cut up the beets/peeled them and laid them out on a cookie sheet. Then, while they were in the oven, I clicked the "roasted" on the recipe. It didn't want me to do that at all! You're supposed to put the entire beet in a casserole dish with a little recipe before even cutting it!

Sew along, days 3-4: the test run

Since Sunday, you should have used the free Coffee Date Dress pattern to cut out cheap practice to play around with for sizing purposes. All the seams should be marked, and you should have cut out along the sewing lines. Now, it's time to make alterations! I'll leave you two days to do this plus a catch up day on Thursday. The next sew along post will be Friday, June 24th. I honestly think alterations are the most complicated part of sewing.

Alterations are really individualized. I'm going to walk you through the process I usually follow when altering a pattern. How you adjust for a problem depends on what the problem is, so you should use your best judgment.

First, pin the fabric along the dart lines. Then hold it up to yourself or your dressform if you have one. The darts should go from your waist to just below each boob (sounds so vulgar in text). If they're too far apart, you'll want to take a little out of the middle. If they're too close together, you should add a little to the middle. If they go up too high, you'll want to move the point of the triangle down, etc. You should do all of this by marking new seams with a different colored marker than you originally used. Mark all changes on the stitching line, not the cutting line. Play with the darts if necessary until you get them right. If you end up having to add to the middle, just cut it open, pin in a little extra fabric, and then go back to your playing around. If there's not enough difference between the waist and bust, you'll have to widen the darts (pinch in more fabric, which means you'll have to add to the sides in the next step.

Pin the darts--you want all "seams" (not real seams since
they're pinned, not stitched) to face outward, like you're
wearing the dress inside out

Darts are too far apart! Take in from the middle