Old Becomes New Again (More "IDIM" Adventures).

     I've owned this Le Chateau jersey wrap dress for years. I've worn it once--to a cousin's wedding. It was a last minute purchase because I don't really like to buy dresses, particularly for special occasions,  and when I do, I'm generally always struggling to find something at the last minute. I ended up with this wrap dress of all things. It is somewhat of a strange purchase because I typically don't find wrap dresses very flattering on my body. I mean, they look great on everyone else, but they tend to emphasize my narrow and straight hips. This is probably one of the better wrap dresses I've come across, so that's probably why I had settled on it after hours and hours of searching in the mall. Anyway, I bought it and wore it to the wedding without hemming likely due to time constraints. It is too long, but with heels it wasn't so terrible, so I just sucked it up for the few hours I was going to wear it.


   Lately, I've been really wanting to learn to work with knits. I've read they're pretty easy to work with and a pretty forgiving material to hide mistakes, but hemming can sometimes be a problem because some sewists get this "rippling" effect at the hem. Becuase of this, I was afraid to dive in. Finally, I worked up the courage to see if I could slim this Ann Taylor shift dress from my last post. It didn't work out so well. So I pulled out the threads and started to do some reading (BTW, if you are a beginner like I am, a great book to learn to work with knits is "Sewing with Knits: Stylish, Classic Garments from Swimsuits to Eveningwear" by Connie Long. I also have "The Stretch & Sew Guide to Sewing on Knits"  by Ann Person but it is not as detailed as the first book). With some new found courage I decided to hem the above dress. And it was a success! Here it is:

 

   Up close: 

       I got very little rippling at the hem, if any. The whole thing would have gone without a hitch had I not run out of thread on my second spool of black thread. I used this twin needle that came with my machine:

      As long as it is threaded correctly (check your sewing machine manual on how to do it), it works just like a straight stitch, but you will need two spools of the same colored thread (unless of course, you want your double stitch to be two different colors). 


     Et voila! Newly hemmed jersey dress! Maybe I'll actually wear this dress now. Maybe. 


     Thanks for reading all these new AFD "IDIM" Sewing Adventures! For a noobie like me, all these new things I'm learning is so much fun and exciting, but maybe not so much for everyone else. LOL. If they get to be too much, just let me know and I won't post about them so frequently. :P