The Walkaway dress conquered
Monday, June 29th, 2015
The ‘Walkaway dress’ was one of the highlights of the 2015 Great British Sewing Bee. So called because apparently, you can start sewing this 1940s style wraparound number after breakfast and walk away in it by lunchtime, or so they say. Maybe lunchtime was a lot later back then. I made one just after the TV programme went out – it took about eight hours, although two or three of those were dog-interrupted, so maybe about five in total.
We’ve had so many people buying the pattern and talking about it since that we decided to run a workshop ahead of a local 1940s weekend, if only so we could help put right some of the issues we’ve found with the pattern.
Four intrepid sewers popped in at 10am, with the hope of walking away in a finished garment by mid-afternoon. That didn’t quite happen thanks to a little too much chatting, one or maybe two cups of tea and cake too many and because sociable sewing and timekeeping are not exactly good companions.
The two main modifications were to shorten the length of the bodice based on nape-to-waist measurements because on the original the waist tends to sit a little low making the dress not fit as well as it should. The other mod was to add some material around the arm holes, again to make it fit better and leave less of a gape (you could get a small dog in-between fabric and bust without it).
So…we might not have finished in the time allowed, but everyone got close enough and, we’ve learned before that workshops run best if you don’t let them go on for too long.
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