#sidenote: I find it hilarious that this pattern is called the Ruby dress

[racingliners]

Cosplay: ST ENT ‘Two Days and Two Night’s Trip Tucker Dress (Part 1 - Pattern Cutting)

‘TIS TIME!! I finally got the lace and was able to start on the Trip dress this week!

I cut out the paper pattern pieces the day before the fabric arrived, so I could get a head start since I knew I would spend a good chunk of time on it (I said it in the Malcolm dress posts and I’ll say it here. Take 👏 time 👏 cutting 👏 out 👏 your 👏 pattern👏).

And I ended up being very glad I decided to get that done before the lace arrived because WHAT IS THAT PATTERN LAYOUT.

Normally, commercial sewing patterns will have a different style of line (solid, long dashes, short dashes, dotted etc) for each size so you know exactly which piece to cut out. This pattern however woke up and chose violence as all the sizes are straight lines.

I’m almost certain I lose braincells in the process of cutting out the right size. Thankfully my trusty felt pen trick of marking out the size I wanted where all the lines overlap worked a treat. I just had to really, really loo at the pattern to make sure I was following the right line.

So the next day, the lace arrived, I’d ironed the cotton and I was ready to cut the pattern piece out of the fabric, until... 

I discovered that the cotton I’d ordered wasn’t wide enough. 🙃.

Fun fact, fabric will come in different widths depending on the manufacturer, and on the back of any pattern envelope, it will specify what width of fabric you need, was well as the length. Good sewers pay attention to this detail when they buy fabric. My brain clearly switched off during the online fabric buying process.

So, after a small panic, I tried folding the fabric a different way, to see if that would give me enough room.

(My main worry was over the front and back skirt pieces, as this dress features a full circle skirt, the pattern pieces for it are big)

Instead of folding the fabric selvedge to selvedge (like you’re meant to) I folded by cotton fabric raw edge to raw edge. I then placed the various pattern pieces down and marked where they were meant to go and thank the sewing gods, I had enough room for all of them (and for the pocket pieces!!!)

This is the only picture I took of cutting out the cotton, I was in full ‘stress focus mode)

Thankfully, I didn’t need to stress about the lace, as it was the specified width. So it was folded and cut out as the lay plan 😅

The only issue I had with folding the cotton the different way meant that I only had room on the fold for the front skirt and front bodice, meaning the piece for the front facing was cut as a regular piece, so where the pattern would have been on the fold, I marked out an extra 2 centimetres with tailor’s chalk so that I could sew the two halves together to make one piece that I then ironed onto the interfacing (you can just about make out the seam in the centre of the facing). 

And that was very much for for day one of the Trip dress!

#and I did this all yesterday when it was pretty hot outside #well done me #ANYWAY I got it done and that's the main thing #I just have to hope it works because I have no idea if any of the cotton pieces were cut on the right grain 😅 #sewing #cosplay #Two Days and Two Nights Dresses #Trip Dress #Simple Sew 003 #sidenote: I find it hilarious that this pattern is called the Ruby dress #When Trip and Malcolm discover they both had a fling with a waitress from the 602 Club called Ruby #the world works in mysterious ways dslbvknea