Lace dress

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! 

I have quite a project to share with you today. It is pretty special on a number of accounts: 

1) I have finally tackled one of my biggest fears when it comes to sewing...working with lace. And boy, did I throw myself into the deep end with this one! 
2) I have not had such a challenge since completing my wedding dress; 
3) This is my first White Tree Fabrics Blog Team make!

The fabrics

White Tree Fabrics kindly provided me with a beautiful heavy corded lace and a luxurious duchess satin for the underlining. If there ever was a match made in heaven, it was those two! What's more, I already had a piece of cotton lining with a very similar shade. I like it when a plan comes together ;) 

I wanted to give this stunning piece of heavy corded lace the attention it really deserves, and that could only mean one thing - appliqué seams. Yes, it is time consuming, but I adored the all over, seamless look that's often seen on couture lace dresses. 

Can you spot the dart and the side seam?

I also love the scalloped selvage of the lace, and used it everywhere -- I made sure the pattern was cut so that the hem falls onto the selvage to minimise the hand stitching. 

The pattern

The pattern is McCalls 6505, which I have had in my stash for quite some time. I love the design, and the photo on the envelope, but have read mixed reviews on the instructions. 

And they were right of course, as the steps described were pretty confusing! Thankfully, though, since I was using appliqué seams, I needed to change the steps anyway. So I spent hours checking all my sewing reference books, and searching through the internet, to come up with a plan that would work for my dress. 

My steps

Here's the nerdy part. I've summarised the key steps I went through, in case it helps anyone else who has been looking at attempting this pattern, or making a similar dress. 

Firstly, the terminology. I'm going to call the lace layer, er, lace, then the duchess satin as "underlining", and the cotton lining the "lining". 

Underlining and lining

1. After making a toile of the lining, I took in at the waist, chopped off some length, and made the slashed side dart into a full, overlapping dart. I also transferred these changes to the pattern for the lace layer. 

2. Making the underlining, and the lining layers, leaving the centre backs open. 

3. Attaching the underlining to the lining at the top/neckline, across the entire top edge. Understitch. 

4. I also made a waist stay, to take some of the weight off the shoulders... literally! This was attached to the lining layer (i.e. sandwiched between lining and underlining), and brought through the lining via buttonholes. 

Cutting the lace

5. Thread trace the pattern pieces on the lace, including the marking for the darts. If I were to do this again, I would thread trace the actual stitching line, as opposed to the cutting line, i.e. I would exclude the seam allowance. 

6. Take great care cutting around the thread, allowing full motifs outside the thread markings. I would say this was the most crucial step in the whole project.  

7. The appliqué seaming begins! Here's a photo of the side dart with the basting and pins. I took my time with the hand stitching here, ensuring continuity of pattern where possible.   

8. I then tried stitching the side seams with a narrow zigzag on my machine, as a shortcut to doing the appliqué seaming. It wasn't the smoothest experience, because the heavy cords often got a bit stuck in the feed dog, but I went slowly and it worked ok. 

Sleeves and neckline

9. I drafted the cap sleeves, rather than using the ones from the pattern, because I wanted to take advantage of the scalloped selvage. 

10. Time for more hand stitching... to attach the sleeves. 

11. I cut a strip of selvage from the remaining fabric, and hand sewed it to the neckline, going from centre back to centre back (via the front!), and also "finished the arm cycles (the portion not covered by the cap sleeves) the same way. 

Attaching the layers

12. After trying the layers on together, I hand basted the lace to the underlining at the centre front and underarm side seams. 

13. I took all three layers together at the centre back, and handpicked the zipper through all layers. Finish the portion of all layers below the zipper. 

14. I then made some covered snaps with the lining fabric, and sewed two pairs at the top of the centre back to the lace. 

15. Finally (!), I hemmed the underlining so that it hangs above the scalloped lace hem, and then the lining so that it is even shorter and is invisible when worn. 

Needless to say, it was a time consuming project. This wasn't my usual "weekender", but it was much more rewarding. I was finally ready to attempt working with lace, and I am really pleased that doing this the couture way has worked out well. 

I must admit though, this was possibly the messiest project that I have ever done! All that thread tracing, snap covering, pins that slipped through the net (yep!) and of course trimming off the excess lace from appliqué seams... My sewing room is a complete mess, and I keep finding red fluff everywhere in the house, and on our clothes... I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person who's pleased that this project is finished! 

Now over to you - do you sew with lace? Any tips to share? 

Pre-wedding update - BM dress

2 sleeps to go! 


Thankfully I have finally finished the bridesmaid's dress today (would you believe it? this last minute? it's really not my style) so thought I would share some photos with you before my lovely bridesmaid wears it on the big day and takes the dress away with her!

The zip closed - it's a pink silk dupion dress with a yellow zip, and it will be worn with a lemony yellow ribbon. 

 The (contrasting) bodice lining with the waist stay inserted

 Hand finished zip between the layers. 

 Very wide hem! I had to shorten the dress by a rather lot, but I was too fearful to cut it short at this late stage (especially as I had hand overcasted the bottom of the dress already). I had to include "ruffles" for the hem so that the fullness is distributed evenly. 

Some non-sewing related sneaky peeks of the sweets jars (centrepieces) and our wine classes for the big day:

 for the top table

See you after the wedding! I'll have so much to upload then, from the wedding day and the mini-moon! 

Finish line......in sight!

It's been a while since my last blog post - but I'm back! After a business+holiday trip to the sunny Prague (fabric purchased there to show off when the projects are finished...), I found myself stuck in my sewing room for the bank holiday weekend here in the UK in the still very cold May (seriously... what is up with the weather here?! shouldn't it almost be summer?) 


After a day and a half's work on the wedding dress, I have a lot to report back. The short version is - it's almost done! I think the only outstanding things are the lace-up back (with a zip at the bottom), the hem and the bustle! I couldn't believe it! 


Here's a sneaky preview:

So all the layers have been attached, and the dress is now in one piece! The longer version of the story is that I  did the following in the last few weeks:

• All pleats tacked in;
• Diagonal drape hand finished and hemmed to the underlining;
• Waist stay attached to the corselette;
• Corselette lining back seams re-opened for the waist stay to come through;
• The relevant sections re-sewn and hand finished;
• A suitable bra dissected...
• Bra cups sewn to the corselette lining;
• All layers other than the corselette lining hand basted together as they are;
• Corselette lining layer and the rest, with RST, hand basted and machine stitched at the neckline; 
• I skipped the grading (I was too scared to cut into the seam allowance on the corselette lining - I decided that it was thin enough to not make a difference, plus the benefit that I won't worry about it fraying and breaking) but understitched all 7 layers of seam allowances to the corselette lining. 

I think that's about it! I was really worried that something would go terribly wrong... especially as I was clipping into all 7 seam allowances at the neckline! Thankfully all the practice on sweetheart necklines has really helped - and I am really happy with how smooth the neckline has turned out to be! 

Here are some work in progress and inside out photos:

So I can definitely see the finish line now... thankfully! I'm going to order some strong cord (the one that I liked from Liberty was not in stock when I popped into the store) for the lace-up loops and some (non-spiral) steel boning for the back closure before going ahead and finishing the dress! I'm so happy with how it's turned out so far and can't wait to finish it and wear it on my wedding day!

Simplicity 3784 - a break from the wedding dress

I wanted a break from making my wedding dress so I decided to have a go at making Simplicity 3784 which I've wanted to make for a while! 

I bought some satin bedding for £5 about a year ago because I loved the pattern. It's made of 100% cotton but it's soooo smooth (but not as slippery to work with as I had feared). When I saw this pattern, I knew exactly it would be perfect for the fabric! 

I made a view D size 6 petite and thought it turned out well. I made a couple of minor modifications:

• I added a waist stay;
• Instead of the bow at the waistline I used a cream coloured ribbon instead; and
• I didn't line the skirt - only lined the bodice and I think it worked fine. 

I thought the pattern was well designed and really easy to follow. This project didn't take me long, even with the boning and inserting the horsehair braid into the hem (I decided to hand sew the hem this time based on my previous experience with machine sewing the braid). The effect of the braid is much more obvious on this dress - I'm really glad I used it. 

I used Rigiline boning this time as it's easier to buy and quite a lot cheaper than spiral steel. and I was happy with the structure it gave the bodice. 

The sizing was fine if not a little bit smaller than I expected. Usually a size 6 Simplicity gives me a little bit more ease - although perhaps it's a sign that I should exercise more now!

The best bit is, I only used half of the bedding so still have plenty left for a project another time!

Bridesmaid dress - almost done!

After A LOT of handsewing, the bridesmaid dress is now almost finished! Here are a few in-progress and inside-out photos:

As the dress is made of silk dupion, I had to underline it with silk organza to prevent seam slippage. I used a (really useful!) technique for the skirt pieces - flatlining with a Hong Kong finish which meant that the organza wrapped around the dupion at the seams so I didn't need to overcast the vertical skirt seams. 


The picture above shows the neckline stay on both the bodice and lining with strips of silk organza, and the grading & understitching on the neckline (so that the fashion fabric seam allowance is stitched to the lining to keep it flat where worn) and also the clipped princess seams to make it lie flat. 

Now please bear with me, the red dressform really steals the thunder of the pink dress! It's a lovely bright pink colour! I will certainly take more photos when my beautiful bridesmaid tries it on.

So the things left to do on this dress are:

• Fittings;
• Adding a waist stay (the stay is ready but i just want to make sure it fits perfectly)
• When ready, insert the centre zipper;
• Finish the bottom of the bodice lining - I'm still deciding on what to do (nobody will see it but I still want it to be finished);
• Hem (still to decide whether horsehair braid is needed); and
• Embellishment for the waistline. The pattern (simplicity 4070 - I made a view E this time) calls for a medium width band (in the same colour as the dress) with a corsage. I was simply experimenting in the last picture. 

Any ideas would be very welcome! 

Corselette! finally...

I've finally made the actual corselette for the wedding dress! Voila!

I have left the waist stay on the outside for the time being and have not finished the closures at the back. I will be using hook and eye tape but given that the wedding is over 10 months later, I thought I'd do these things closer to the time in case I put on/lose weight! 


There are 11 bonings in the corselette and I think I will attach the heavy dress net to this layer. but I'm yet to decide whether I'll add another lining layer for the corselette for comfort and whether I should finish the top of the corselette (or just leave it as it won't be on show anyway). 


So almost time to cut into the fashion fabric! I'm not quite feeling brave enough yet!