more sewing lessons

I haven't been posting the progress of my sewing student lately. It isn't that she hasn't been progressing, she has. As her skills have improved it has seemed a better use of our time together to design, draft and do the basic garment construction together.My student has been finishing off her garments, finishing off the necklines and armholes and hemming her garments at home, on her own.

That has been hugely satisfying to me as a teacher, but it has made posting finished garments a bit more difficult.

Last week we had made a bubble dress, that is a tank dress with a band at the hem that gathered the hem. The silk knit we had used didn't have the best recovery in the world, so the dress ended up looking sad and floppy. My student attempted a fix but was not satisfied with the result.

There was no more of the navy blue silk knit.The band was damaged by the fix and the un-sewing. Since the fabric was fairly fragile, it seemed to make better sense to just cut the band off rather than unpicking the stitching. The dress was then too short for us to gather the hem by threading elastic through a hem casing.

We had to re- think my student's plan A for the dress. usually when we get stuck we look in my fabric closet for inspiration. my student had admired a silk chiffon scarf that I had dyed to turn into a tallit. Parts of the dye job were beautiful, other parts were problematic. My student asked if we could add a piece of the scarf to the dress. I showed her how if we attached a piece of the scarf on the bias, it would drape in a lovely way.

We cut a square of fabric off of the scarf. My student folded the dress in half the long way and marked the fold with chalk. She sewed the raw edge of the scarf to the chalk l line, then folded the scarf over the raw edge and top stitched.

My student ended up with a different cute dress than the one she had thought she was sewing. It is a useful thing to learn how to make adjustment when things don't go as planned