Soo… are you guys sick of seeing my WIP macaron dress yet?! heh
This post constitutes all of the work I put in on the dress as of 8pm Sunday evening. And I have to admit, I was 100% sick of working on this dress at this point! I spend my entire weekend working on my dress and didn’t take enough breaks that I was completely burnt out and didn’t want to look at it anymore.
What did I do: I watched one of my favorite movies How to Train Your Dragon while knitting my green bobble sweater. Felix calls me crazy since my “relaxing” time always involves some kind of work too. Either way I was happy as a clam knitting while watching my movie. I almost felt refreshed to work on my dress again. Almost, but not quite since I had to go to bed when the movie was done since I had work in the morning.
If you’re not quite as tired as I was on this Macaron dress feel free to read the rest of this post. There’s a sneak peek at the end which may influence your decision to stick around. :)
I left off on the last post where I had fell-stitched the top of the lining onto the yoke. The next natural step was to stitch the bottom section of the lining onto the skirt, covering the seam allowances in the process.
In preparation of stitching down the lining and covering up the rest of the seam allowances, I had to get rid of all the stray strings and fuzz on the underside of the bodice. I didn’t want to add any bulk from serging so I simply & carefully pinked most of the seam allowances.
I went around the bottom part of the bodice pinning-stretching-and repinning the lining down. I wanted to ensure that I had enough ease so that the lining wasn’t too snug vs. the fashion fabric so it took me at least 20 minutes to do all of the pinning.
I used a slip-stitch all around the bodice bottom and I also slip-stitched the lining around the side-seam lapped zipper.
One of the little touches I wanted to add to this dress was hanger loops. You often find hanger loops on your store-bought dresses, but never once did I think to add them to my own dresses.
I bought the thinnest black ribbon I could find at my local notions store (Soutache). I bought 2 yards worth since I intended to affix the loops at the bottom of the bodice on the seam allowance for the skirt. They were going to be the long hanger loops that extended from the bottom of the bodice at the front and back.
What ended up happening was that type of hanger loop wasn’t relieving the bodice of the excess weight like I had planned, which would have resulted in pointless hanger loops. So instead I added them to the underarms which worked much better. (They alleviated the weight of the dress off of the shoulders of the bodice better.)
Does this make sense?
I just tacked down the edges of the ribbon securely with small back stitches.
Next up: I attached a hook and eye to the waist at the zipper closure to alleviate stress at the waist.
I don’t have any good pictures of the zipper nor the finished work but here is a shot of the mini-est hook ever seen!
Keep in mind I already have pretty small hands (same size hands as most 10-12 year old girls) so this hook is really itty bitty. What’s nice is that you can kinda see my side seam zipper (100% hand sewn).
Attaching a hook and eye at the size seam overtop of the zipper ensures that the zipper doesn’t gap when moving around or sitting. So you shouldn’t be seeing the zipper teeth on my bodice or skirt. It’s a small thing, but something I had planned on incorporating since I’ve spent so much time on this dress.
What else could I possibly have to show you… you may be asking. Well… don’t forget about the hem. :)
At this point I tried my dress on once more with my shoes (and perhaps some lipstick for fun) and my Mr. Felix got to work at marking my hem for me.
Felix is quite the indispensable hem-helper as he sits on the floor and marks all of my hems.
I stitched some rayon seam binding onto the hem of my skirt (via machine) and also basted some organza onto the center back seam allowance in preparation of my godet.
While I didn’t finish sewing the hem on Sunday I had everything prepped so that I could stitch it by hand on Monday (which I did.)
After prepping the hem, I worked on my godet.
The steps of the godet are very similar to that of my peplum. I basted all around the godet and then stitched the bottom of the scallops by machine using a small zig-sag stitch.
I trimmed the scallop edge and serged the two long seams to ensure there wouldn’t be any fraying.
Right side of the Godet:
Again I was toying around with the idea of having a solid black lace godet but I thought it would bring the bodice and the skirt more in harmony having the cranberry underlay at the hem as well.
If you’ve stuck around this long you deserve at least a sneak peek of me in my dress! :)
I had Felix take a few quick shots of me in the dress on Sunday afternoon after he marked the hem.
As you can see I’m sporting the dress with a self-made black silk belt I had in my closet. I wanted an alternative to the peplum (since it’s removable) and this belt worked quite nicely with the dress.
A few things have happened since Sunday night (when I took these photos) and now (Tuesday night when I’m writing this post).
I finished hand stitching the hem, hemmed the skirt lining, and covered up all of my seam allowances on the skirt. I attached the godet to the skirt and also covered those seams up. Then I set about at making some dress shields (which were a bust) so I won’t be sewing them into the dress as a result. (But I’ll show you guys them anyhow…)
After all this what is left?! I have to restitch one of my shoulder strap holders since I stitched in one of the snaps on backwards. *doh* I have to finish the closure on my removable peplum. And that’s it!!!
It’s kinda crazy that after so much time has passed & with all of the work I’ve done in the past 2 weeks, that it’s nearing completion. I think I’m going to have to take a mini break from sewing once I’m done with this dress since every weekend has felt like a marathon sewing session.
So I think I’ll only have 1 more dress-construction post after this and then you’ll see the real deal early next week. (Assuming all goes well and I can take some pics over the weekend).
Thank you all for hanging in there and humoring me with all of these construction images. Cheers!
In: Sewing
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