My frustration with this dress may have been a little misplaced. You see, I was deep into a binge of season 1 of the Undisclosed podcast as I was sewing. My head was spinning with cellphone pings, brady violations, and all the perplexing and terrifying details of a murder trial in the American justice system.
(Listen to Serial, then listen to Undisclosed, then start the revolution. Or at the very least, write a short blog post about it.)
(Oh, and throw in Making a Murderer, Rectify and OJ: Made in America for good measure. You’ll be so mired in the stench of American crime you’ll need a Canadian cleanse. A Red Green enema, might do the trick?)
The sleeve cap on this dress may not actually have been too big, but dagnabbit, it seemed miles longer that the armscye. All that ease was going to drive me batty! The pinning, the basting, the pinning, the basting… and all the while, the nagging introspection:
Could I be coerced into a false confession?
Would I be an ethical and intelligent juror? What is reasonable doubt?
Do I remember what I did two weeks ago, Friday? Do I remember with any accuracy what I did last night? Just how malleable is memory? How much eyewitness testimony can ever really be trusted?
And what silly human decided to forgo the elegant simplicity of the kimono sleeve in favour of the convoluted logic of the set-in sleeve?! (Since writing this, I’ve learned that “kimono” in this context may not be appropriate or sensitive.)
To make matters worse, where there was too much fabric at the sleeve cap, there wasn’t nearly enough at the hip. And a sausage casing butt is not a good look.
So the dress was sentenced to a few days solitary confinement. It needed to have a good long think about all that wanton ease and all the beautifully sewn in-seam pockets it had massacred.
When it emerged, I (=empathetic and reasonable citizen) voted for rehabilitation. Sleeve caps were eased in with newfound patience and care. Side seam pockets were replaced with two piece godets to allow mobility.
A perfectly serviceable dress was born.
If only all fibre inmates at the woolandpotato prison fared so well.
- Pattern: Burdastyle Linen shirt dress
- Size: I must’ve sewn the 38? But looking at the sizing on the pattern now is making me confused…
- Fabric: Linen viscose blend, cause why would you sew with anything else in the summer? Accents in poly satin.
