Viking Dress in Jersey

As the Hobbit and LOTR are largely inspired by Nordic legends, I thought I'd put a Viking dress into my final collection. It's pretty much zero-waste too.

• ribbing

• overlock seams

• overstitching

• using clear elastic as a stabiliser on knits

• marking jersey (use a marker pen). 

I haven't perfected the neckline though (and it bothers me).

I recently got an overlocker on eBay (Toyota SLR4D) and finally have it working properly (turns out the tension discs just needed wiping out)! And learning to work with jersey is one of my goals for my FMP, so I'm making this dress from either jersey or ponte knit (which I have to test sew because I haven't used it before and it's different).

This dress took me about 4 hours to make including cutting. I'm reasonably pleased with it and I will be wearing it, even though it's a size 10 and I'm a 6.

I suppose this answers how RTW fits pretty much everyone since jersey became the norm.

Now, you may have noticed that the sleeves are a little snug in comparison to the dress form. This is one of the reasons we toile. :) I have made them bigger on the pattern.

The pockets were going to be sleeve segments, but I thought pockets would be better (because who doesn't love pockets?!)

New skills used in this dress:

I got the fabric yesterday at The Shuttle in Leeds. I went on a fabric sourcing trip with the class, which was fruitful, though I still have a few more things to get, like sweatshirting and gold-coloured denim. I estimated my final collection will cost up to £300 in supplies. Not bad really, considering in London it's not unusual to pay £7,000 (but that includes paying people to make it for you, which we don't do).

I have updated the pattern to work with the changes in the sleeves, and will try it next in a t-shirt, perhaps with the lace at the shoulders too.

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