TL; DR – Sometimes knits are a pain to sew, sewing machines are temperamental, sometimes you sew when you can control anything else in your life, and it still won’t be something you can control.

This is going to one of those posts that people (including me) complain about, where I am going to tell a story before getting to the pattern review. Good thing I already reviewed the pattern previously, so you can read that instead if this isn’t your thing.

Two weekends ago, my daughter and I got into a car accident on our way home from a girls’ weekend getaway. We were going because she was scheduled to have surgery on her ankle today. The car was a complete write-off, and while we were both fine, we still had this surgery looming, and that weekend was supposed to be our last chance before she was wearing a boot for the rest of the summer.

The worst time is the waiting. Hurry up and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

I’ve avoided sewing knits since I got my new Brother machine because it doesn’t have a stretch stitch, like my Singer Simple. So it’s been a lot of woven dresses for summer. And then I wanted to finally make a Kielo wrap dress out of a dusty pink, oh-so-soft jersey, a sleeveless version for the summer. So I thought, maybe my Singer Simple will work again!

Nope. Still a POS that I don’t know how to fix, and if I bring it in again, I’ll have paid more on tune-ups on it than it’s original cost. And I have to get a new car after only having the car that was totaled for less than 8 months. So, fuck you machine, sit on the sidelines. But then my Brother sewing machine decided, nah, maybe the bottom of the stitch is going to fuck up, too.

My god, I wanted to die.

I undid so many damn stitches on this, in part because I forgot how slippery jersey can be. When I did the first version of this dress, it was in a sturdier ponte knit, but this jersey…god damn it. It looks great, but let me tell you, it’s a mess on the inside because the stitches were being a pain in the ass.

The armhole needed to be adjusted because it was a little too big as written (or at least as I interpreted it), and I had to cut a new neck-piece because it was entirely too short and no matter how I tried I couldn’t get it to fit. I wanted an easy sew, and it turned into one of the harder sews I’ve done. I just wanted something simple and satisfying, something I could control, something familiar (this is the first pattern I’ve done twice). And I ended up almost throwing my sewing machines out the window and was just about reduced to tears.

But I’m writing this “review” sitting in the waiting room while my daughter is in surgery, and the dress is soft, and it’s wrapped around me in a way that is comforting, and I am reminded that sometimes what is supposed to be easy turns out to be hard but I’m also trying hard to keep myself occupied while I wait, and this dress is both a distraction and a frustration, but no more so than anything else right now, so I’ll think about this dress instead of my daughter in surgery, or my car that is totaled and having to buy a new one, and everything else.

So, dress is still good. I’ll still make it again. But this one…This one is complicated and beautiful for reasons, and I’ll always wear it to remind me of…something. This moment.