Lining of the Macaron

Here I am back with another edition of: All Things Macaron. This time I’m showing you guys the lining that I worked on late last week. I’m still pretty behind with posting up all of the construction images, which I guess is a good thing. It means I’m taking plenty of photos (for once). heh

I cut out the lower bodice lining for the macaron dress and got to stitching it all up. It went a lot faster than I would have guessed given the fact that it’s silk charmeuse, one of the slickest & shiftiest fabrics ever.

The color is off since I took these photos in the evening; the color is more of a champagne or light tan (to match my pale skin). The yoke of the bodice was underlined in matching silk charmeuse and bound with bias strips so there was no need to line the top portion of the bodice as well.

I pressed the top of the seam allowances down all around the bodice, which was to enable me to fell-stitch the lining by hand easier.

And lastly, I didn’t stitch any darts into the bodice lining… instead I stitched them all as tucks.

I’m lifting up the pressed tuck with my seam ripper since that was the handiest tool I found at the time. (Not actually ripping any seams…)

Sewing tucks instead of darts makes the lining a bit more roomy and easier to wear. This is a trick I learnt while making coats and It’s come in quite handy since. What was sneaky of me was that I pressed all of the tucks as if they were darts, mirroring the real bodice.

Lining tends to be more fragile than the fashion fabric, so just making tucks reduces any strain on the garment and it also prevents against accidental rips and wear over time.

Here’s what half of my sewing table looked like late last week:

Starting from the upper left, working clockwise around the table:

One of my favorite sewing books: The Spadea Sewing Book: A Collection of Sewing Tips by World Famous Designers (I’ve used tips from here more times than I can count for this dress).
Constructed lining for the bodice and underneath is my lining for the black pencil skirt-portion of the dress
Hip curve ruler, used to grade in my seams of my skirt lining.
The book Couture Sewing Techniques by Claire Shaeffer, open to the page about constructing dress shields. (This is another of my stand-by reference books.)
A notebook of all of the things I have yet to do on my dress resting atop of the book The Dressmaker’s Handbook of Couture Sewing Techniques by Lynda Maynard (not one of my favorites, but has a few helpful tips on bindings).
The little strip of fabric is actually a partially-constructed bra-strap holder, next to a pair of snaps
Another to-do list (this one is a daily list that is shorter, but keeps me on task.)
A dress shield pattern I worked up, with the only two scraps of silk charmeuse I have left (which is not enough to make 1 pair of shields.)

At the end of each sewing session, I like to reorganize my whole sewing table & space. I put all my notions back where they should be and make nice & neat piles for everything else. After all that I re-figure my to-do list, and update as needed. If I took longer than I thought on one item, I re-write the next day’s list taking that into account.

I’m a bit fan of to-do lists, but I’ll be the first to admit, I never give myself enough time and am frequently overambitious in what I think I can get done in a day/evening. This always means I have to re-write my list, which I’m always pretty happy to do. heh I’m a geek like that. :)

In: Sewing