My Husband The Tailor

I've been wanting to duplicate one of my favorite dresses for some time now. It is very simple. No sleeves, buttons or zippers. Just a sleeveless, calf-length dress that came with a sweater, similar to the one my friend here recently knitted. I decided that the time had come and picked out some material yesterday. It cost $4.97/yard. I bought one yard too much. At first I thought I only needed two yards, but I really needed three. But I thought I needed to double it, so I bought four. The lady cutting the material has worked there 20 years and she told me I needed three, but I thought she meant if I cut the material. But I wanted whole strips.

So yesterday, I'm sitting there trying to trace the pattern around the form of the dress turned inside out. I didn't want to gut the dress because it still fits and it is one of my favorites. I sat there puzzling and dh asked me what was wrong. I explained the problems I was having. I also mentioned that I was sure *he* could figure it out. We've talked about this before, the fact that sewing is very similar to sheet metal mechanics. We had to stop to do chores so we put it aside for awhile. Dh milked Little Screamer for me so chore time took about 15 minutes less than it usually does. (Usually about 45 minutes each afternoon). We came back in and I had to begin cutting up the meat for dinner, I was trying Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich again, this time leaving the onions off of hubby's portion. Ds2 trimmed the meat and tenderized it while we were out milking. We really have a helpful family. So dh starts looking at the pattern again, and I came over to show him about the "darts" the piece that is altered in the bustline. We looked over it carefully and thankfully my old dress had lines in the material which showed really clearly how some of the material was removed. Anyway, it was enough to indicate to dh how to measure to figure out the dart.

And he proceeded to figure out the rest of the pattern by measuring and figuring just as if he were working on creating something from sheet metal. His training was for custom sheet metal design, for example making sign cabinets that have fluorescent lighting (like you see at many businesses) but he also can do standard sheet metal and in a hot state like ours, lots of air conditioning related sheet metal. For example, elbows (shown at left). A complex design if you can imagine making something like that. I have seen him do it, and it always amazes me. He told me yesterday that copying this dress was easy, since he had a pattern to actually follow. He says usually when making a piece out of sheet metal, he would be given measurements, sometimes over the phone from the person out in the field.

I am trying to be brief, but as you can see it's not working. Dh and I have to go into town to buy a drinking fountain for his job from someone who offered it on Craigslist and we have to leave in about an hour. I had hoped to get the kitchen clean this morning so I could work on putting the dress together in the afternoon.

So I'll post a few more pictures, then hopefully back later with the dress.






Ds1 also helped by cutting some of the paper.

Until next time.