Experiments in Jersey No 1: Ultimate Wrap Dress

After seven months of neglecting my blog, I'm back! Apologies to anyone who has come looking for updates - I started a new job in October and it has taken me months to adjust to all the travelling. Plus, I've decided I'm a fair weather sewer, only seem to get inspired once the sun has come out! I've sewn once since the last blog post - some Christmas bunting for a colleague's Secret Santa gift - and didn't manage to get a photo done.

Anyway, back to the purpose of today's blog post... The Great British Sewing Bee completely inspired me to try sewing with jersey / stretch fabric... It looked tricky but totally do-able. After scouting around on my favourite fabric website, Spoonflower, I placed an order... In the meantime, waiting the month or so for the fabric to arrive I ordered some cheap fabric from Minerva, to test out just how tricky this new fabric might be...

I went for Sew Over It's Ultimate Wrap Dress, mostly because I wanted to support their shop, I've never been but it's local enough, and I do want to get there!

So what do you think?? It's certainly a little lower and higher cut than I'd normally go for! Perhaps one for once the legs have adjusted to seeing any daylight! 

It was incredibly easy to make the dress - no faffing, it was done in just a few hours, using a ballpoint needle... Without an overlocker at hand I'm afraid I left the edges raw so we'll have to see how long it lasts, but I don't especially care - it's not my favourite, nor the most wearable of dresses!

There's one bugbear I have with it too - there's a lot of rippling, on a couple of the hemmed edges. Any more experienced sewers, I'd love your opinions, what went wrong? 

I can guarantee the next post won't take so long to get put up - have already made the next project using the Spoonflower jersey I mentioned :)