Finished dress

Last weekend we had a trip to my friend Alicia in Kenilworth, primarily to do a fitting of “The Dress” to be able to continue working on it.

It was first thought about last July, when the sari fabric was draped around Alicia Dress-making and continued progress in More dress-making and more … then in Dress progress, and it has been on my tailor’s dummy since then.

It was tried on and, much to my relief, it fitted. Alicia was thrilled to bits with it, she loves the colour and fit, and said it felt like a party dress. As you can see from the dummy, it appears rather revealing, and it needed a “dickie” for modesty, so a wodge of fabric was put down the front as a temporary measure. It’s pulling slightly at the front partly because the lining isn’t joined at the centre front and the centre back, to make it easier to do round the neckline and armholes when I was attaching the lining (hand dyed with Procion dye). This was not the first try on, I’d already levelled the hem, cut it and overlocked it.

It fits well at the back too, and I’m so pleased with the concealed zip.

The decorative band from the fabric was pinned on, but there were a few doubts about it.

After sleeping on it, I wondered whether we could lose the gold part in the band.

The lining was pinned up to see how it looked, but without the trim it lost the whole point of the fabric. It just looked fairly ordinary. The dickie was supposed to be press-studded in place, but the fabric was so fine that I thought they would show. I couldn’t get my head round how to attach it between the dress and the lining, and stay neat at the bottom (it looks a bit bulky at the bottom as the lining is still open inside).

It was decided 3:1 to go with the band without the gold. The band was machine-stitched together up to the bottom of the V-neck line, and the gold was ironed flat inside for the sides of the V neck. The dickie was made a bit bigger than the pattern. It has two layers with a fold at the top, overlocked round the rest of it and stitched by hand to the outside of the dress, where it was then trapped between the dress and the decorative band, again by hand.

The centre front and back seams of the lining were machine-stitched, and the lining hand-stitched to the zip making sure it was far enough away not to get caught in the zip, which is so annoying on many bought lined garments.

The lining hem was cut level with the dress, folded over twice and machine-stitched. Then the hem was hand-stitched, a race against the clock before we needed to leave…… I didn’t go over by much!

But there wasn’t time to iron the dress before the final try on. Alicia was so excited, she was dancing round the room, it’s all ready for a party or two once it’s had a quick press.

It wasn’t the easiest of fabrics to work on, nor was it easy to get the overlocker tension right for such fine fabric, but I’ve learnt a lot. Alicia wants me to make up the sari fabric that was given to me at the same time, so that we can wear them together to go somewhere special.

More dress-making and more …

For some reason, the photos that wouldn’t download last week did it automatically when I was doing something else with the computer last night! Temperamental or what? Certainly frustrating, when it works when you haven’t done anything differently at all.

The photo above was where I’d got to last week, with the Dress-making and Brave, and lucky. The zip was tacked in, a shortish one, just to get the fit right, about two or three inches above the widest part across the hips. To make it easier to tack in and to unpick, I had done a large stitch up the centre back, and on the seams either side to make the back into one piece.

It was a simple, quick little job to do the shoulder and side seams. The lining was assembled ready for a fitting, so I thought I’d put it on my mannequin to see how it looks. Well, it seems she’s had too much Christmas pudding, chocolate and not enough exercise. She’s quite broad of shoulder, and although the measurements are the same as the friend the dress is for, no way would it go over her head. I tried taking her off the stand and putting it on from the bottom, still no joy.

I had already unpicked the stitches in front of the zip, so I unpicked down to where the zip is meant to go to, with the right size zip. I still had to wrestle her into the dress, and it looks somewhat tight, even with the front only stitched up to where the facing would go if it’s unlined.

The armhole doesn’t go to the bottom of the mannequin armhole either.

I know it’s meant to be fitted, but it looks like if she took a deep breath the seams would burst, and she certainly couldn’t move in it. Hopefully, I’ve miscalculated somewhere and the mannequin measurements allow for ease, and aren’t Alicia’s actual measurements.

At least it’s shown that I am likely to have to do some letting out of seams, so to post it and hope to be able to tell on-line is a non-starter. This is as far as I can get at the moment without a fitting, so it’s a good excuse to get together again soon.

I’ve finally finished the leather archway (Carol Money), stained glass (Jan Dowson ), and braided chain stitch (Alex Hall) piece that I blogged about in Tutors and time

It was almost done, but there was something I wasn’t quite happy with, so Jean (one of the Grasby Embroiderers) looked at it with me before Christmas. I’d wondered about a twisted cord on the left-hand side of the window to give the effect of a shadow, and Jean suggested just couching down some strands of perlé. We tried out several colours and settled on a dull darkish brown. I couldn’t finish it then as I didn’t have the right colour of Sylko with me.

Christmas then took over, and I finally got back to it yesterday. I couched four strands of perlé down the left-hand side, plunged them through, and trimmed off the excess “window”. It’s subtle, but just finishes it off.

I’ve backed it, attached a hanging cord and it’s now on the wall.