Heather purple dress, part 3

So, now for the final installment of the making of this dress.
At this point it’s just a bit of finishing off to go; sewing the lining to the zip tape, and doing the hem.  It doesn’t sound like much, but hems are not to be rushed into, especially on a plain-ish dress like this one in which a wonky hem would stand out like a sore thumb.  The very simplicity of the dress’s style means that the hem has to be perfect, as there are no design details to draw the eye away from imperfections, not even a print on the fabric.
So I sew the lining on to the zip tape by hand.  A comment kindly directed me to a site where I could learn how to do this feature by machine… (haven’t checked it out yet) but I had already finished it by this stage!  

And the hem…  When I want it to be perfect there is no other way than this…  Remember when your mother got you to stand on a chair and slowly rotate while she measured and pinned your hems…?  I still do this for my daughter’s dresses but a person can’t help but shift weight a tiny bit from foot to foot, and move their hips, even the smallest amount and it really throws off your hem measurements, the beauty of Bessie is that she’s rock steady.

After I’ve trimmed the hem allowance to 5cm (I pull the dress onto the ironing board to do this), overlock the edge, pin up and press, I trim the lining to be the same length as the pinned-up hem of the dress proper.  Then I fold the lining up on the inside 1cm, press, fold up another 1cm, press, then sew it by machine.  This results in a lining hemmed exactly 2cm  shorter than my dress length, which is perfect…

I make some bias binding out of voile…

And attach this by machine to the edge to cover the overlocking stitches, press the bias edges under, then finally slip stitch the hem invisibly into place…

Voila!

I feel like a bit of a fraud modelling it as I’m not wearing it today and I don’t intend to wear it until autumn.  I am wearing the scarf (which I also made over the weekend) and shoes today, but with a different dress!
Truth be told, I finished this dress two days ago; I did say I’d been sewing like a demon, I’ve also finished my next two re-fashion projects which are lined up for those Wardrobe Refashion posts, man I’ve got to slow down…  Good news (?!) is that our office computer is up and running so I can get onto a mountain of office work as of this week…  yay (in a small, depressed voice)…

Details:
Dress; Burda 8511, modified, purple hessian silk
Scarf; turquoise silk chiffon, self-made
Shoes; lasoffitadi Gjilde, from Zomp