Somehow this project was a failure from the start. I had the idea to sew the little one and myself a matching sailor outfit. A shirt and shorts for him and a dress for me. I had this cute boy's sailor shirt pattern for ages. It was the first Ottobre magazine I ever bought. For myself I had planned a 50s style dress with a simple sailor collar. So where did everything go wrong?
First the fabric I ordered was a far lighter blue than I wanted. On my screen it looked much darker and so I was a bit disappointed when it arrived. But well, I did not want to order more fabric from overseas and my local fabric store has not so many nice cottons, so wanted to work with what I had.
So I traced the patterns, constructed a sailor collar for myself with the help of a vintage pattern and began cutting the fabric. Somehow I really did not think enough about pattern placement, because of course I had problems that I did not have enough fabric. And it was all my fault because I made some stupid decisions while cutting. But well, in the end I had cut out all pattern pieces and could begin sewing.
Next my overlock machine hated me for ten minutes and I had to fumble with all the threads, but that was a minor problem. The shorts were easy to sew. It was very basic and I had no problems with it at all (okay, except that the waistband did not fit entirely on the pants, but that was an easy fix). So then I began sewing my dress and the shirt. For the dress I used a pattern from Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book. The designs in this book are amazing and I will do a review about it hopefully soon.
For the collars I wanted to sew on some white stripes. But of course I had no ribbon on hand and neither did I have a blue zipper. Ok, so a trip to the fabric store was necessary. The ribbon hated me and so I skipped it. Solid blue collar? Why not?
Somehow I was able to mess up the collar placement of the boy's shirt and of course only realized it, when I already finished the neckband. The collar on my dress looked also a bit strange, but not horrible. But when I tried on the top of the dress it was far too small in the waist, although I fit the measurements exactly. I let out some widths of the darts, which was okay.
So at this point I was a bit exhausted and unnerved, but had the will to go on. But then came the final straw. When I had sewed on the sleeves of the dress it did not fit at all. The arm holes are way to small. I have no big arms, so I do not understand, how this could happen. After I discovered this, I gave up. I was just tired of this project and had no desire to make all the fixes necessary. So I am honest, I put almost everything in the trash. Only the shorts and the skirt pieces are still alive. At least the shorts are wearable and I guess I can make something out of the skirt pieces (although it is not my color at all). I am not sure what I will do with the Gertie patterns. The projects in this book are really cute and maybe I will fix the patterns, so that I can make some of them. Because I really love the concept of this book.
So as you can see, even after years of sewing, sometimes things will not work out in the end. But to end this with a quote from one of my favorite movies:
As somebody once said, there's a difference between a failure and a fiasco. A failure is simply the non-present of success. Any fool can accomplish failure. But a fiasco, a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions. A fiasco is a folktale told to others, that makes other people feel more... alive. Because it didn't happen to them.
Drew Baylor in Elizabethtown
