Well fast forward and less then 2 weeks later I have my own personal Pinstrosity to share :(
It all began with a gorgeous little dress than I had pinned and planned to make for my niece for her birthday. I should have seen the warning signs when I went to the website to get the instructions and all the photos were missing. Now I must say the missing photos were no fault of the Blog owner- she had recently, somehow, lost ALL her photos on her blog and was undergoing the daunting task of trying to replace them all. UGH I can't imagine the stress of that process!
I felt quite confident that I could still make the dress sans photos as I am a moderately skilled sewer and so off I went. I cut out all the random pieces in the correct measurements and was even able to manage cutting out an off center skirt :p But the minute I started actually sewing everything went to ^&*&^^%$$#
I sewed the bodice together the wrong way three times and had to rip it out after every fail. I finally got it together the correct way but then the halter straps did not line up the way they should have. I then discovered I had to "shir" the back of bodice which I had never done but I learned and it actually wasn't bad except I did the shirring on the wrong side of the fabric! The shirring was also not tight enough to make the back fit right. Heavy Sigh!
The skirt part ended up being much too short to be a dress even with the ruffle attached and the back hung open and so I decided that if I added the gathered sides it would pull the "dress" up too high to even be a decent top. Instead I added some wide ties and created a double back bow to help pull in the excess fabric in hopes that it will actually fit my petite niece.
A significant part of the problems I had were the lack of photos. For example, even though I used her pattern template my bodice looks nothing like hers. When you are working with no pattern and someone else's ideas it isn't easy to mesh the two without visuals. Store bought patterns always combine written instructions with pictures-- know why?? I sure do (now)
The dress/top wasn't a total loss though and my niece is still getting it. It actually is quite pretty but bears little resemblance to the original pattern I based it on :(
I now consider my a full fledged member of Pinstrosity and have the
