Execution of the Plan

I am happy with the dress however it really veered off the plan.

Recall…this is the pattern.

My previous dress made with this pattern.

You just look at this dress
and it wrinkles

I started off thinking this was just going to be as the pattern intended but after cutting out the pattern pieces I decided I wanted a tie for the back.  I knew I was going to back off the piping for this dress and that stayed true to plan.  I also knew that from my prior make, I thought the sleeves were a tad long…just long enough to annoy the crap out of me so those were shortened.  I also wanted to lower the neckline.  Hello cocktail dress…. needs a low neckline.

I constructed the dress with French seams.  I love French seams in theory but they annoy me in execution because it really does mean sewing the dress twice.  I also hand basted the seams first before taking it to the machine so I could stop the slippery charmeuse from slipping and sliding all over the place.  Due to the time crunch I have to admit the basting was NOT pretty but it did its job.

Just the 2 rows of topstitching
and lower on the neck

First bee in the bonnet: I decided I should top stitch with silver metallic thread.  I had some wild idea this would look really cool.  Well, the first row of topstitching along the shoulder seams looked okay.  Sooooo I decided a second row would look better.  It was okay so why not add a third row??  So that’s what I did.  But when I stepped back and looked at the third row, I ….well I have to say I hated it!!  Really hated it and started re-thinking silver topstitching all together.  Out came the third row of topstitching but I just decided to leave the 2 rows remaining and revisit it later.

Notice how high the neck
is in the back.  Also you can kinda
see that there would have been a lot
more topstitching

When trying on the bodice with the lower neckline, I started making changes to the neckline in general.  I thought there was too much fabric in the back of the neck in that it was creeping up my neck.  But time was of the essence so no muslining changes.  When I bound the neckline with bias binding, I made further changes to the shape of the neckline which means that all the silly topstitching has all but disappeared.

Second bee in the bonnet: After piping along the waistline, I decided I needed to bring the silver metallic topstitching down to the waist.  I topstitched above the piping. …and it looked weird so I removed it.  I topstitched under the piping…better but the fabric was sliding and the topstitching was…well…very wavy.  So out it came.

This silly topstitching is eating up the time!!  I had to stop and just finish the puppy so I didn’t go to the party naked!

Better Late Than a No Show

Polka dots on parade dress was finished in a timely manner.  It was worn to the event, very successfully I might add.  I went with a whole 1940’s flavor that I enjoy so much

What I love about this dress is the piping I added.  I think it just ramps up the dress from ordinary to a little special.  I am particularly pleased with the way the piping on the sleeves turned out.  Thanks to the incredible Carolyn for providing a tutorial that took me from huh to wow!

What I do not like about the dress is the material.  It definitely has polyester in it.  I danced for a couple of hours at the event and this material did not breathe!  Ugh and the room where the dancing took place was HOT.  Hey at least it doesn’t wrinkle too badly.

Courtesy of D'Nalof Designs
Yes, it's me.

Down the Pipeline

Lots of corded piping!

I have been  making a lot of black piping.  Do you make your own piping?  If so, what do you use for the piping?  Do you use straight strips or bias strips.

I use string for my piping.  Ordinary cotton string.  It is less than $2 at the hardware store and I use it for gathering and piping.  I love this stuff and it is so cheap.  I also think it makes the perfect size piping.

This time I did both bias strips for curves and straight strips for the sleeves.  It should come as no surprise, I do hand baste in the piping. 

I love the finished look piping gives an outfit!

First Sundress of the Season

 I managed to finish up Simplicity 1620.  Boy do I like wearing full gathered skirts.  I do not, however, like attaching them to a bodice or hemming them!  What is worse is when your camera disappears for days so you cannot document the finished product.  Found the camera and here I am.

Love the piping.

Without petticoat

Attaching the skirt was problematic magnified by my lovely piping.  Getting the skirt to lay nicely after being sewn required a couple of tries.  I did not use a waist stay because the selvedges are at the waist.  There should be no stretching of the waist.

I used an invisible zipper because that is what I had on hand.  Went in easily, by hand.

Hemming the skirt was another matter entirely.  I expect putting in the zipper to be a slow process because I need to make sure everything turns out lined up.  However, hemming should be quick and easy.  What with measuring, pinning, ironing and actually sewing, I must have spent no less than 3 hours on the skirt hem.  Probably more.  Just the sewing of the hem took over an hour and a half.  Yuppers, I timed myself and I felt as if I was sewing rather fast.

Self timer catches me in action.
Here you can see there is quite a bit
of ease through the lower part of the
bodice even without the FBA.

Once I found the camera, I tried the self timer function to get pictures of the dress being worn.  Wow was that something.  It turned out better than I thought….though the first couple of tries did not include full bodies.  I found a place in my front yard where I could achieve that.

Yes, there is a street light in my front yard.
It was put there by a previous owner
and it is kinda goofy and kinda cool.

I am wearing the dress with a petticoat but not a very full petticoat.  It should look better with the fuller petticoat.  Note to self: make bigger petticoat.  Oh, yeah, I have one half finished.  Better get on that!

My thoughts on this Simplicity pattern - nice and easy.  I had read some horror stories about vintage Simplicity patterns and I did not have a problem with the pattern or fitting.

Piiping

I wanted to do something to set off this dress and finish it nicely.  So I thought contrasting corded piping.  That might have worked if my brown was even close to the color brown in the print.  It would have been smart to have checked before making the piping.  Nope, I just whipped up a load of brown piping which will have to be used for something else!

Front view.  See the facing
bunching up?

So, same fabric piping here we come.

Close up of piping.

I have piped the armholes and neckline.  My distaste of facings raised its head again.  The neckline facing was not laying correctly.  Then it hit me…duh….I forgot to clip and trim the seam allowance.  No wonder it was all bunchy!  I used bias binding to finish the armhole area.

Back view.  How do I get everything
so very wrinkled as I sew?

I like the piping and plan to put it in the waist seam as well.

Do Not Adjust Your Computer or How NOT to Match Stripes

Apparently, I am very bad at matching stripes.  Granted these were uneven stripes.  All of my attempts were just off.  Some pieces of the bodice were cut more than once until I just decided to forget it.  I spent hours and hours trying to match the stripes.  I do realize the curved seams did not assist in the matching process but seriously it was bad.

It was bugging me but I did not have enough time to find new fabric.  So what to do?  Well, I made some piping for the obvious seams to kind of distract from the mis-matched stripes.  It was the only idea I could come up with.  I can’t even say it works.  But it is nice piping! I did not make corded piping, just flat piping.  Maybe the cording would have helped even more.