Hello Hive
I can remember the many times I have lamented here, sometimes about how I damaged some fabrics beyond repair and had to discard them. But guess what? Over the 4 years I have been blogging about my needlework project progress. I am so delighted at how I am able to now make flawless outfits now,or better there are fewer sewing errors in my projects.
While learning and practicing, damaging our own fabrics wouldn't hurt as much as when we try to make an outfit for a client or someone else and the fitting turns out wrong.
I have condemned a lot of clothes in the past, but that didn't stop me from trying to sew again. I remember on two occasions, my sister gave me her fabrics to sew for her. I made such terrible mistakes, and the outfits didn't even enter her body. I felt so bad, but my sister wasn't that all that mad at me. She supported and encouraged me believing that some day I will make some better fitted clothes for her.
All of these put together made a positive impact on my sewing adventure and career.
For a very long time, I have refused to start up my fashion business because of the fear of damaging clients outfits. I have seen videos of how customers and clients often get into serious fights when a customer damages a client's clothes, and I want to avoid that experience at all costs.
I have rejected several of the people who would have become my business clients by now. Knowing fully well that while some damages can be adjusted, in some other instances the clients might totally reject her clothes and ask for a refund of both the fabrics in which a new fabric must be purchased and the refund of money paid for the sewing service. No one will will be happy about such an experience.
Hence, if you ever want to venture into fashion or any other business, do make sure to train yourself and practice your skills well enough before coming out to sell yourself to the public.
Having worked on myself and practice more, I feel so happy about my sewing skills now. One thing I was determined to do is never to reject clothes from any client again.
Paradvebture: I don't understand any design. I will search the internet and rehearse with similar videos of the design. I will purchase cheap fabrics and try the design first before going ahead to make client's outfit.
It is also a good thing to practice cutting and sewing the series of fashion design patterns out there. Practice more and sew for ourselves so that when a client comes with their fabrics, desiring the exact same design we have practiced on ourselves earlier it will be easy to replicate it for them and make it even better.
For today's project, I have been eyeing how to make a perfect fitting wrap dress 🥻 with overlapping flounce too. A friend of mine has requested that I make something similar for her and since I have some cheap fabric I got for less than $2, I decided to make use of it.
I have a bit of experience sewing a wrap top, and I had sewn this lovely one for myself earlier.
Applying that knowledge, I made the length of my outfits longer, up to the knee.
Cut out the back bodice using a regular basic bodice.
Then I placed the back bodice on the front, adding an extra overlapping allowance of about 5". This is as desired for everyone, though.
I have cut the front here and then moved on to stitch them up.
First, I created some darts on the back piece for fitting.
Joined the shoulder and side seams
And then make a gather of about 7" to add to the overlapped hem.
That was done, and I didn't expect to make an outfit straight up like this without an error.
I had wanted to attach a flounce or flair, but the fabrics were not enough, so I settled for the gathers.
The lesson learned from making this can be applied to making better outfits for any of my clients in the future or even to making some fashion lines. One of the lessons learned is the minimum amount of fabric you must bring to achieve this. For any average-height client making this, at least 96" by 60" of fabric will be needed to sew this.
Moreover, next time I could make skimpy and shorter overlapped dresses, shortening the length of this for bulk sales or clients in need of lovely ones in shorter length.
The pride of every needleworker is the joy of seeing positive progress in their career and sewing ventures despite the disappointing mistakes and rough journey of becoming a designer. Some may even have it much tougher if they lacked the needed machine to make clean finishing for their projects, but all of this persistence and hard work often pay off in the end. And with the same encouragement I have received from the community, I encourage you all to keep striving for mastery; someday you will all be celebrated.
Much love to my friends, families, and acquaintances. I love you all, and I thank you for being there for me this far.
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