Shoulder Seams

My ‘macaron redux’ dress is officially starting to take shape and look like an actual bodice.

I managed to sew the shoulder seams this evening.  These little seams really should have only taken me 30 minutes (tops) to sew up ended up taking a few hours.  Darn this mouth surgery!  It’s making things very difficult to focus.  Ahh well, at least I managed to get something done today.

This is a shot of both the front and back bodice shoulder seams.

I ended up cutting most of the applique motifs off of the shoulders since they were a bit too large to lap over to the other side of the seam.  I had the same issue before with the bodice sections; lapping the black lace onto more black lace ended up making the seams too cluttered instead of ‘invisible’ and ‘pretty’.  So I only retained the motifs that landed right on the seam line.

Here’s a close-up of the right shoulder seam:

There is a horizontal line of some basting marks on the large flower motif.  That is the point where it crosses the seam line onto the bodice back piece.  This ended up being the only motif I saved to applique on the right shoulder.

And here is a close-up of left shoulder seam:

Again, I’ve retained just a little piece of the large flower motif that crossed onto the seam line (upper left of image where the horizontal basting line is).

And finally, here’s the bodice shoulders all sewn up and lookin’ pretty:

I still need to officially hand-sew down the lace motifs but the shoulder seams are pretty much done.

The next things I have to research for the bodice is:

  • Neckline Facing vs. Bias Facing
  • Sewing the bodice side-applique-seam (sans closure side)
  • Attaching the cap sleeves
  • Armhole Facing vs. Bias Binding
  • Potential closure methods
  • Additional bodice lining (still deciding)
  • Seam allowance treatments

Yikes!  When I list it out all like this is feels like I’m so far away from completing this dress.  I did manage to get some reading this evening on some of these topics so I have a bit of a head start on what my next steps will be.  I’m projecting that I’ll tackle either the neckline seam next or the side seam (sans closure side).

The thing I’m most dreading on this dress is the ‘closure’ method.  I highly dislike zippers on a good day, and I’m really going to have to research about what kind of zipper or other closure method I should use on this dress.  If you guys have any thoughts to share on any of these topics or know of any helpful links, please don’t hesitate to post them up in the comments.

In: Sewing

Blogger for 6 years and counting, I am a passionate creator who loves to tinker.

Comments (6)

  1. G July 12, 2011 — 7:48 AM

    Your dress is coming along great! For the closure I’d say a black invisible zipper in the side seam.

  2. Lauren July 12, 2011 — 9:41 AM

    it looks gorgeous so far! i love all the detailed posts you’ve been doing for this dress :) for your closure, i think you should do a lapped side-seam zipper, so it’s a little more hidden. you can hand-pick it so it will retain the softness of the dress (i think machine stitching would be too harsh of a stitch line, if that makes sense) and hand-picking is soooooo easy when it comes to matching up seams & getting everything sewn in perfectly.

  3. Louise July 12, 2011 — 12:43 PM

    I was looking for information about neck facing vs bias binding & armhole facing vs bias binding. I didn’t find much and even when I posted a question on my blog I got nothing in return so I decided to go ahead with it anyway! I’ve been sewing the bias binding on the armhole today and so far it looks ok. I feel a facing can look a bit home made although if you could catchstitch the facing well it would look good but I’m rubbish at hand stitching so I wanted to try out the binding method on a dress I’m making for my Mother In Law. Look forward to seeing what conclusions you come to…

    http://hereswhatididtoday.blogspot.com/search/label/simplicity%205961

  4. Maria July 12, 2011 — 12:49 PM

    I’m really impressed. It looks great and I’m sure that it’s going to be gorgeous when you’ve finished it.

  5. Tasha July 12, 2011 — 6:01 PM

    Impressive! I just used bias binding sort of as armhole facings in my sundress. I know people usually sew it to the right side, flip it in, then topstitch in place, but I invisibly sewing it around the armhole by hand and I was far happier with the results. Wait though hmm… you are doing cap sleeves? Never mind what I said then, you must be talking about using it in a different way. But same could be said for the neckline. :)

  6. K-Line July 12, 2011 — 6:29 PM

    Keep on, it’s looking fantastic!

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