Mood:
irritatedNow Playing: "Untamed Youth" - MST3K, on ancient VHS
Grrrr. After slamming Sewing for 20th Century Dolls, vols. 1 & 2 to the Crissy group, I kind of felt bad. I mean, it might not be Johana Gast Anderton's fault that the two projects I tried from her book were both failures. At the time, I was still fairly new to sewing, there's a very good chance it was completely my fault. Although the directions were sparse, I may have misread or overcomplicated things - I do that a lot.
So, when Day 2 of our ice storm dawned, I pulled out a scan of the patterns from Vol. 1. I don't actually own that one - shelling out $20. plus shipping for the semi-useless Vol. 2 did not encourage me to spend more on what was probably more of the same. So a friend sent me copies of the Crissy stuff from hers in a trade. I've always wanted to make Crissy's orange lace issue dress in other colors. What better time than the present ?
I got the pattern all printed out and even cut from the copy paper when I noticed the dreaded "Add 1/4" seam allowance". Aww, s#it. I hate doing that. I always obsess and worry that I'll lose some of the item or it won't match up correctly if I don't reproduce that curve precisely so. As it was, I stupidly added 1/4" to the center front, like an idiot. Center front isn't a seam on this dress. Baka, baka. Took me over half an hour and gave me a headache, so I napped before cutting fabric and digging in.
The pattern itself, though, was amazing. It went together very well, matched up beautifully. Even the sleeves went in on the first try. I thought, 'Now this is gonna be an amazing dress !', and reached for my Crissy.
And the dress hung on her like a bag. Shoulder seam was halfway down her shoulder, the dress front was, of course, too wide, but that was partially my fault. What in the world ? Only thing I could think of was that the 'add 1/4" allowance' was wrong, it was already in. The pattern itself had been reproduced and printed correctly, I verified that before I cut the fabric.
So I redid all the seams I could, taking it in 1/4" inch everywhere. Now it fit, but thanks to my blunder, the dress still didn't fit right. I have no idea why I added the seam allowance to the front center, it's not a seam. But I could tell, if I'd just skipped the 'add' part that took a half hour and gave me a headache, I'd have had a great dress from Attempt #1.
There wasn't much I could do with the first one, so I attempted a second, after carefully cutting off the unnecessary seam allowance. It worked up great. Sleeves went in like a dream, everything matched and looked great. It's just frustrating that I followed the directions and screwed it up.
But, hey, that's my experience with Sewing for 20th Century Dolls. I'm glad I gave it a second chance, but it's still screwed up. Such a simple blunder on the author's part, I just don't understand. Why am I finding so many screw-ups that are so easily solved ? Just doesn't make sense.
Anyway, here's Attempt #2. I really like this one. Fit is fantastic, and about all I'll do differently on the next one is hem the sleeves a bit more. This one still needs a hem and back closure, but I'll get to that later.
First the Velvet dress and panties, and now this one. I still just don't get it. If I was selling a pattern book for anything, I'd spend half my life making d@mn sure everything fit and worked. That the seam allowances were there already, and that anyone could pick this up and work it successfully.
Ironically, I asked the Crissy group members if anyone else had soooo much trouble with Ms. Anderton's patterns. Several members mentioned they had one book or another. So far, no answers. I'm starting to think that most of the folks who have this book / these books have never sewn anything from it / them. But they do look darn good on a bookshelf, and they are fun to leaf through.
That's not enough for me. If it's a pattern book, those patterns had darn well better be usable, functional, and maybe even fun. I don't understand how anyone could put his or her name on a book that's so full of errors and problems. Growlmutterwhinesnipe...
