Dress progress

I’ve made progress on several projects this week. Nothing finished, yet, but optimistically hoping to finish my shard for Linconshire Textiles tonight!

The sari fabric dress has moved on considerably. It was just as well I’d waited for Alicia to come for a fitting of the lining before continuing with it, because the fit was just as on the mannequin, but one deep breath and the seams would have burst. It certainly went on Alicia more easily, but the lack of flexibility of the mannequin had made it tricky to get it on and off. She was delighted with it, the flow of the style and the Procion dyed colour of the lining.

I let the seams out, except on the centre front and centre back. The large stitches made them easy to unpick once I’d re-stitched with a smaller seam allowance of 3/8″ rather than the standard 5/8″ in dress-making, so gaining three inches overall and allowing for movement, and a good dinner.

Then for the scary bit, to cut out the sari fabric. Definitely measure twice and cut once, with lots of checking, no going back once I’d started cutting. It looks as if there is a lot of wastage, but the skirt is very full on the centre panels front and back, and I opted to have the pieces all going in the same direction, in spite of there not being an obvious nap or one way design on the blue. It did feel slightly smoother stroking in one direction. The fabric is in two folded down the length pieces. I’ve allowed as much as possible at the bottom of each piece, in case we opt to make it longer.

I finally plucked up courage to cut it out.

Then, to put in a concealed zip. I don’t think I’ve put one in before, maybe a sample, but even that was a very long time ago (35 plus years at least). I had a quick look at YouTube and the first one that popped up was by Angela Wolf “How to Sew an Invisible Zipper Step by Step”. Sorry I can’t get it to link, but it was really good and very clear instructions.

She recommends an invisible zipper-foot, which I don’t have, but she said it could be done with an ordinary zipper-foot. Once it was pressed it looked ok, but once you move you could see it, and the bottom wasn’t quite right.

For a bit of advice, we took it to run past Janet, who showed us one that she’d done. It really was invisible, just looks like a seam. She has an Jenome invisible foot that looked as if it would fit my Brother machine, and I could borrow that. We also talked through my other uncertainties, which stopped me from trying to solve them in my head at 3.30 a.m. like the previous night, but yet to try them.

The foot works a treat, when you have the seam open in the right way! Fortunately the fabric was forgiving and hasn’t left a row of holes. The zip is in at last. Five lines of stitching when it really only needed two! The first two with the ordinary zipper foot worked as tacking stitches and, left in, will stop any fraying. It was only the third row that needed unpicking. The rest of the back seam was stitched (right side, see below) with a pretty invisible zip (on the left). Ok, it needs a bit more pressing, but I was pleased with it for a first attempt.

There was limited time before Alicia was going home, and I wanted to get the seams joined so that I could check the fit. I repeated the 3/8″ seams except on the centre front and back, which again are 5/8″. I joined the shoulders to check for fitting, knowing that I would need to undo them again to neaten all the seams. I finished with 10 minutes to spare, the bobbin ran out on the second shoulder seam….. but no, the top thread had broken!

There was just time to put it all on to check the fit. The lining appears inside out, as it has to be put on first, and the temporary zip done up from the inside. Then the dress goes over the top. It fits really well.

It needs a good press. There’s still a way to go yet: the seams neatening, the modesty panel at the front sorting out, the dress attaching to lining at the neck and armholes, and the hems on both layers. But at least I can now continue with it.

Dress-making

When I was a teenager I used to make a lot, if not most, of my own clothes. I was one out of four in my year group of about 100 girls who took “Dress” (needlework) ‘O’ level. This was partly due to the fact that although the teacher was very good, she was also very scary. I still refer to my needlework books for how to do things like concealed zips or how to do a particular type of seam. We had to do annotated diagrams for all the skills we learned, and sometime I’ve found them more use than YouTube.

It used to be much cheaper to make things of reasonable or good quality than to buy them. I remember the teacher taking us as a class on the bus into the centre of Birmingham and looking at the clothes in Chelsea Girl. She told us to look at the dreadful seams, badly put in zips and uneven hems on poor quality fabric and telling us we could make much better ourselves for less money.

This certainly appealed to me, particularly once I had 50p clothing allowance when I was 14. Mum still bought my school uniform, a winter coat and shoes, sensible ones! But apart from that I had to clothe myself. It was my choice, it meant I got to choose my clothes and I learned to budget in the process. I soon went back to wearing socks for school as it was all too easy to snag tights and they were soon full of ladders (with clear nail varnish to stop them running any further).

So making things made my 50p go further. My nanna also used to help especially with the hems; I would rustle up a dress in the week, stand on a chair for nanna to pin it up and get it level, and leave it with her to hand sew the hem in beautiful herringbone stitch. I’d collect it the following Saturday, often repeating the process. I didn’t like the hand-sewing, far too slow and needing more patience than I had at the time!

My mum sold fabric by the piece on a party basis at this time. It used to arrive once a month in various fabrics and lengths, and my mum, sister and I took turns to have first pick. But I’ve barely made anything in the way of clothes since we moved here in 1990.

Other things and interests took over, also patterns, notions and fabric became much more expensive in comparision to what you could buy ready-made. But it is still something I keep saying I want to get back to.

When visiting a friend a couple of years ago, an Indian friend who was staying with them was packing ready to move on and gave her the beautiful sari fabric above. I said I would make it up for her. She lives two and a half hours away, so taking measurements and fitting has been inpractical since lockdown.

We went there for a weekend at the beginning of August and a bit of draping took place. Measurements were taken, but no final decisions made. The fabric is very fine, and needs lining, but it’s a difficult colour to match, not quite blue and not quite turquoise. After a little consultation with another friend I was going to cut off the beautiful border and use the same fabric for the lining.

I then came across a Vogue pattern in a charity shop for 25p, less than I was buying patterns for in the 70’s. I thought the border would work well down the centre panels.

The friend came for the weekend a few weeks ago, and measurements were re-taken, decisions were made. A bit scary, but the border was cut off, leaving about 1cm at the edge of the gold, the very pattern part put away for now. The pattern pieces were laid on the fabric which was just about long enough to cut an outer layer and a lining if I narrowed the skirt. By the time she left, I had something to work with. We had done some pattern alterations on sleeves at school, so I planned on using a similar technique.

When I did the dyeing day a few weeks ago, I realised the Turquoise Procion dye was pretty close to the sari fabric. So on a good blowy day last week, I put in the washing machine a length of very fine cotton fabric that is the perfect size, with the Procion dye, salt and washing soda. I put the cotton pillowcase in when I washed it through to make sure it was not going to run. On the line while wet it looked an almost perfect match, but it has dried to more like the pillowcase colour. The right tone but lighter. Now I just need to brave cutting it all out.