I last left off this exciting saga (ha ha) with the front and back sewn to their facing/linings at the armhole edges and neckline, and the seam allowances clipped and graded.
I then turned the front and back pieces right side out, eased the seams open and pressed, then understitched the facings on the curved part of the seams. I hope everyone understitches their facings, I think it makes a huge difference to keeping those facings on the inside where they should be, and not rolling out to the outside. It’s difficult to see in the photo, (I’ve made it a big photo to help) but my unpicker and the pencil are pointing to the understitching seams. You can’t really sew all the way up to the edge of the seams, because you are trying to sew up a tube and that’s impossible, at least on my machine, but just understitching around the curves results in a much cleaner, nicer edge that sits flat.
Now for the shoulder seams. I sew the front and backs together, at this point I either congratulate myself on careful measuring getting those gaps exactly the same width, or I’m kicking myself I didn’t measure precisely and check properly (see part 1); nowadays I am super accurate with this part as I’ve come to grief here before…. don’t want to talk about it, but it means redoing those arm and/or neck seams again….
Then I carefully clip the corners a bit (not too closely if the fabric is a real fray-er, like this silk is) in the photo above the left side is clipped but not the right, press open with my fingers (not an iron), turn the facing shoulder seams in and pin closed, then handstitch the facing shoulder seams closed… in the photo below I’ve stitched the right seam and just pinned the left side. In the photo you can also see one of my sewing assistants who often helps out by plonking herself down right in the thick of things at some crucial step..
Now for the zip… I overlock the edges of the left side seam (if you’re a left-hander you might prefer to have your zip on the right side seam, probably one of the reasons you’re a dressmaker is so you can have this feature where you want it rather than where commercial clothing manufacturers have decided for you) Then I physically try on the dress and pin it closed down the side seams to check just where I want them and mark front and back with pins…
Then insert the zip along these markings. I perhaps should have taken more photos during the zip insertion process, but I always get in a bit of a zip-insertion zone at this stage and didn’t think to pick up the camera. Anyhoo, I put the zip in, sewing from top to bottom both sides… then after this sew the seam below the zip, again from top to bottom. Do others do it this way also? I find if I do one side of the zip top to bottom, the the other side bottom to top, and/or the dress seam bottom to top, it’s very difficult to avoid little lumps or bumps in the seam. I think it’s because the upper and under fabric pieces shift due to tiny variations in the rate of the feed dogs on the under side compared to the rate you control the fabric feeding into the machine… Any thoughts anyone? It’s taken me a few imperfect zips that require unpicking and re-doing to settle on this rigid “top to bottom” rule that I never break now… Here is the zip inserted, and the pins you can see are the lining pinned to the zip tape on the inside (photo of this further below)
Then I sew the right side seam following my markings, both the dress and the facing/lining top to bottom, and overlock/finish this seam… (I know this looks a little tight on Bessie but the truth is that she’s a tad bigger than me and although I’m struggling to close the zip on her I have plenty of breathing space when the dress is on me… another trial and error thing I’ve learnt to adapt to)
Here is the photo of the inside of the dress so far, with the lining pinned to the zip tape ready for handsewing…. Does anyone know how to do this by machine successfully… that’s a holy grail for me, as it always ends up looking like a lumpy mess when I’ve tried and needs re-doing. Until I can learn how to do this I’m handstitching for a perfect finish..
Finishing stages of the dress in a few days…
At this time of year the sky is this intense ultramarine blue and the grasses are dryly yellowing until they are crackling underfoot, as always the landscape is everlastingly fascinating. Nature has a perfection in her colour palette that is daily an inspiration, those of us drawn to colour and its myriad changing faces in the shifting path of the sun are compelled to express themselves somehow, for some it is in the medium of paint on canvas, for me in my insatiable love of clothes, I choose to do this through my apparel.
