I’ve done a bunch.. and it’s been a while since I updated progress on the dress.. but frankly, all the stuff I’ve done is kinda boring and not-picture-worthy.
I’ve been doing this big push to get the dress done by Crown. I will definitely -make- it.. but the current weather report put the weekend in the low 70s.. so I may just wear my green wool German instead of this new linen dress. So I’m not really rushing to get everything done. Not to worry, I’m sure there are some scorching events coming up soon.
Stuff done:
I did a simple 1/2″ rolled hem at the top of my skirt fabric.
Just below this I attached a cheater strip of gingham. Then I pleated the skirt. I only ran a single line of thread for pleating. It went relatively fast and had essentially the same outcome as I got by running three lines of thread.. so I think I’ll stick to 1 thread in the future.
Then I made a little band of fabric 3″ wide by about 50″ long. I folded this to enclose all raw edges and sewed it down. On this I added marks 7/8 inches apart. At each mark I tacked the top of one of my skirt pleats.
After all pleats were tacked to the strip I removed my pleating string and the cheater strip.
Then I worked my way around the skirt band and attached the tops of each pleat to the skirt band.
Once that was complete I attached the band to the bottom of the bodice. The band is completely hidden inside the bodice.. but this way if I ever need to pull the skirt off the bodice I can do that without having to completely re-pleat the whole thing.
I did a french seam down the front of the skirt leaving the top ~5 inches open so that I can get into/out of the dress.
I did about a rolled hem along the edges of that opening to finish it.
Then I attached another hook/eye to hold the overlapped piece in place on the inside of the bodice.
Edith stopped by and marked the bottom of the dress and I cut it off to slightly-longer than the correct length (leaving enough fabric for a nice rolled hem).
Still to-do:
– Finish hem. Since I’m nto really rushing to get it finished by this weekend I think I’ll make this my weekend project to finish the hem by hand.
– Add pieced guard to the dress. I want to add one pieced triangle velvet guard to the bottom of the dress. I want to use velvet both to match the bodice guards and because I think the velvet will add a nice weight to near the bottom of the skirt. I haven’t even started on this. I need to buy velvet, cut it into little triangular pieces and then sew it together. No rush on this. The dress is wearable without the guard.
– Pleat sleeves of the hemd. I haven’t even started on this. So.. yeah, need to do it.
– I’m also tempted to use the last of the left-over red linen scraps to make removable strappy sleeves. Will need to think about that for a bit.