Sewing a floral sweetheart dress - Part 2

hello everybody,

so this is the second part of making the sweetheart dress. and I´ll talking about making the skirt and finishing the dress.

First, like always, I needed to calculate the pieces of fabric.

Since the bodice as two seams down the center I wanted them go over into the skirt ( if you would cut the whole skirt out of one piece of fabric, this isn´t necessary, but since I had a pattern with a direction, I needed to look at the seams)

So I measured at my bodice from seam to seam, then I had 4 numbers and mulitplied each by 2,5

These are the widths of each piece, the length was in my case 60 cm, but I shortened it later on

 

 

Here are all the 4 pieces:

 

 

Then I finished all the raw edges vertically with a zic-zac stitch, since I don´t have a serger, you could also do this later, but I like to finsh the edges first.

 

 

 In the next step I connected all the pieces together so I had this long strip of fabric with 3 seams.
altogether I had two thin pieces, one wider front piece and one, which was rather long for the back ( the zipper will be on  the side)

 

Then it was time ruffling the top ofthe skirt, this is a process I enyod normally, but since this fabric is so stiff I couldn´t gather it with normal thread, so I had to redo the complete stiching and I also had to go with larger ruffles, which were more or less cartridge pleats.

In the end I used heavy duty thread and stitches that were 1 cm apart from each other.

 

 

Then I gathered it down, by making a knot on one side of the thread, and pulling on the side, till it fitted to the bodice.

 

 I evenly distributed the pleats so that each seam of the bodice goes over into the seam of the skirt, I took a lot of time for is, because I am a perfectionist

 

Sewing the pleats was a tough task for me and my maschine, because like I said before, the fabric is really thick.

 

I finished the wiastline as usual with some bias tape, which I made out of the lining fabric. First I cut three strips, so that they match my waist circumference.

 

 The strips get sewn toegther so I have one long strip, with my bias tape maker i ironed the strips

 The last step was to sew in the zipper, I would have used an invisible one, but my local fabric store didn´t had one.

 

  I hate sewing in the zipper and I am pretty miserable at it too, but with my new sewing maschine the task was bit easier, so it isn´t as bad as some others I made.

with the Zipper done, all that  is left to do is hemming the skirt, but I was a bit in a rush so I didn´t  photograph it.

And here are two photos of me wearing the finished dress

 

 

thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it :)

 

Christmas star- Part 3: Accessoires and the final costume

Hello everybody,

This is the final part, that deals with my Christmas costume.
I´ll give you a quick walktrough on how I made the matching accessoires.
First I made a belt, that basically looks like a cummerbund. I made it with three rectangles.
The one in the middle was 2,5 times wider that the narrow peices. The large pieces gets gathered down so I could connect them. the edges were finished with satin ribbon, which I sewed on like a facing, but then flipped to the outside and sewed it down.

 For closures I decided to go with 4 hooks and eyes, since I used all my snaps on the dress.

 Nevertheless I have to admit, that I did a real sloppy job on the belt, but my excuse was that I haven´t had much time, because I wanted to take photos a day after Christmas.

For further decoration I made a small bow and I used this great tutorial for that.

I had some of the gold trim left, so I tought the whole belt would look a lot better with the trim and it did actually.

When sewn together the bow looked like this

 Then I tried the belt on and placed the bow, with a safety pin, where it looked good. the sewed the bow on with a couple stitches

Unfortunately I forgot to make pictures of the process of making the headpiece.

But I explain it as best as I can.

I made a circle of cheap plastic covered copper wire. ( I like to use that wire instead of aluminuim, because it is a lot stiffer). Then I covered the the wire with some of the red fabric I had left and also clued the remaining gold trim on it. cut the fake flowers in small pieces and arranged them till I liked how it look, everything was glued down with hot glue.

and here is the back of it. I also made a small fabric bow to cover the back, but I could have used also some more flowers or pines.

And finally the finished photos. I made them some of them in the dark and some during day light, so the are all edited a bit different.

The wig is a "Lindsay" in pale blonde from ardawigs

That´s it, thanks fore reading. I hope you enjoyed it :)

Christmas star - Part 2: skirt + finishing the dress

hello everybody,

Since I finished the bodice I am moving forward to the skirt and main dress. First things first, a very important step, which gets often forgotten. The math!
Before I even started I needed to calculate the whole skirt. on the picture you can see my notes. the triangles are the skirt pieces. first I wanted the front and back pieces to cover the whole waist, but when I started cutting I made the red triangles go all the way up and be part of the waistline, if that makes sense to you. ( you´ll see what I mean, in the Pictures down below)

So first i cut out the front and back piece with the Christmas fabric. This is the front one, it is the exact same for the back, with the difference that the back piece is cut in half vertically.

The I cut the side panles with that red shiny fabric ( I don´t know the professional name for it, but I often see it used as lining)

here I decided that the top should be 4cm wide instead of going together like  triangle.

The next step was pretty easy, but I needed a long time, mainly because my sewing maschine isn´t the quickest. I just made French seams to connect all the panels, but left the seam on the back open at first.

The I closed the back seam, but I left 26 cm from the top open, there will be the closure.

I finished these seams in a pretty unique way, which i say on a sewing blog ( unfortunately I forgot the name of it)

For this technique you´ll need at least 2 cm seam allowance , which gets regularly sewn together. the seams will be ironed in half with the raw side to the seams, at last the edges get swn down about one mm from the edges. 



After finsishing the main construction of the skirt I made another modesty panel and some bias tape out of the Christmas fabric

The modesty panel gets sewn into place, like the one on the bodice, but the edges were finished a bit differently: the edges of the modesty panel were cut down to approx. 0,5 cm. Then the Christmas fabric gets folded over it and sewn down by hand. on the other side I made a regular hem and stitched it down by hand

Now for the closures: snaps again, I sewed the on like the ones on the bodice, but with more patience and love. 

Making the hem was the next thing on my schedule, by hand of course so there isn´t barely visible stitching.

After I hemmed the skirt I tried it on and it was too big, which wasn´t a problem, because I knew this before, since I cut the front and back panel to fit around my waist, but then decided to cut the red panels  4cm wider on the top ( in the end you´ll see how I fixed that)



But before connecting the skirt to the bodice, I decorated it with the gold trim I bought for this costume. First I sewed a strip next to the closures to hide the black gap.

I sewed it down with tiny whip stitches and black thread.

The I sewed two addtional straps to the front, which should look like a v-neck and add a bit of sparkle to the neckline. Here is a picture from the finished bodice

And here is the back of the bodice. I made sure that the gold trim looks like one one piece, that goes all the way down to the waist. 



Then it was time to sew the bodice and skirt together aka making a dress out of a top and bottom.

I pinned everything carefully together. and kept and eye on the seams, and the middle. so everything was centered.

When it was done it looks like this.



The problem with the additional material was solved making making two tiny pleats about 4cm away from the side panel. I measured the the skirt and bodice. The excess was eliminated by making the pleats. ( I placed the ther because it makes the waist look slimmer) 



I finally tried the dress on and I am really happy with the fit and how glamourous it looks.

The dress itself is completed,but I am making a matching belt with a bow and a headpiece, so there´ll be a blog post about that too, together with the final photos, which I´ll shoot tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas :)

Christmas star - Part 1: The bodice

Hello everybody,

Since it is Christmas, I thought it made be nice to make something Holiday themed. So I decided ( also because I found an amazing Christmas fabric) to attempt making my first costume and full length dress. All of that till Christmas with lots of upcoming tests in school. this should be exciting.

So first of all I bought the Christmas fabric, which is the one on the very top. the I made a design based on the fabric. The other fabric I am using for this dress is a black javanaise for the lining, shiny red Polyester for the side panels of the dress and a bow and some beige lace and gold trim for decorations.

I dyed the lace with some black tea.

I began with draping the pattern on my dressform, I didn´t go into the Details again, but I documented the whole patternmaking process better, than in´the last post.



When I removed it from the dressforma I had a pattern looking like this. I marked th chest dart and the waist line, when it was still on the dressform ( please excue the ugly fabric, I just like to drape with really ugly fabric. It kinda motivates me to move forward to the real dress)



The transfered the pattern to paper and added seam allowances and up/ downsized it to my measurements. with this pattern I made a mock-up, please don´t ever skipt this step, if you cut it from the real fabric you can´t reverse anything.

My pattern was to wide so I reduced the width of the waist again and shortened the straps.



I made all the alterations and added a little bit of length to the waistline so I have enough room, to have the waist exactly where I want it.



With the finsihed pattern I could start cutting my beautiful floral fabric. I cut the front part on the fold and the back part in two seperate pieces.



When cut it looked like this:

Then I began sewing it together, first the the darts on the bodice, I marked them with chalk, then folded them in half and sewed across the line, but there a bunch of tutorials, which explain the process a lot better. Then I sewed the side seams with 1 cm to create a full bodice.



With the finished bodice I could start finishing the seams, first the facing made out of black Cotton, so the whole neckline and arm openings are stiffer. I made the facing by tracing around the neckline, then I added 5 cm to the line, which created a thick strip.



I cut all the facings out, on the left side you can see the facing of the armholes and the neckline. I also cut out some boing channels, where I turned the edges inward with made bias tape maker. I also cut out a modesty panel, where the closures will be. so there sonest show any skin on the back. I made the modesty panel, by sewing around the top and bottom edge with half a centimetre and  turning it inside out. It was cut on fold so didn´t worry about the left side.



When I turned the panel inside out, i just ironed it flat and the sewed it onto the back of the bodice. eventually the bodice will close with hooks and eyes. The eyes will be sewn on the modesty panel.

Then I sewed all the facings on. first the one for the neckline, then the facing for the armholes. I first pinned the edges togehter and made sure that the points of the neckline match. I sewed it with  1cm seam allowance

To secure the seam allowance to the facing iI simply, pressed the allowance to the left side and sewed across the very edge of the facing. but there are also a lot of tutorials on the internet, where the whole facing process gets explained way better.

When that´s done,

 I flipped the facing inward and since I stitched the sea allowance to the facing there is a small line of the outer fabric on the inside. This is great because it prevends the facing from peeking out while worn.

I should look like this, when all the facings are ironed to the wrong side.

Now for the lining: the part I hate the most...
First I cut it out and I used a synthetic black fabric, which is beautiful, but a pain to work with.

The lining gets sewn in the exact same way as the main fabric. First the darts then the side seams.
To give the whole bodice a little bit more stability I decided to add a few boning chanels, wich I first made out of black cotton. I sewed them onto the lining, so the channels won´t be visible on the outer fabric. But this solution isn´t ideal, I would recommend making a base layer for the bodcie too. In my case this wan´t an potion, first because I didn´t have a suitable fabric and second becuase I was worried that the bodice will the too stiff.

The I sewed the lining to the facings, by hand, so there isn´t any visible topstitching.
I turned the edges of the lining inward and sewed it with whip stitches. there wasn´t any boning in there yet.

To finish the remaining raw edges I folded the main fabric to the lining two times and sitiched it down, also by hand.
I really had to be carful, that the lining didn´t shift too much, otherwise there would some parts could be too floppy or could have too much tension.

When everything is hemmed it looked like this, pretty and neat, so now for the closure

On the inside it looked like this. I first had to insert the boning in These boning channel, so I can´t accidently sew them closed, which happend to me two times.

 Then I sewed the closures on. This was quite frustrating. First I tried hooks and eyes, but they didn´t had a good quilty, or maybe I have done something wrong?. When I closed the third hook, the first one opened itself and so on..
Anyway I decided to sew on snaps, since I hadn´t this issue there. It took me altogether three evening to sew and rip out all the closures... This was a shame

 But then I could add the remaining boning, which is always quite funny at least I think it is. I used plastic boning, marked the length i needed, cut it there with regular scissors and the filed the edges, so the cannot damage the fabric.

The last the step to make a functional bodice is to sew the straps togheter, I made them with 1cm seam allowance.

I finished the edges of the straps with some satin ribbon, which I first sewed down on one side, then flipped it over and sewed it on the other side, just like bias tape.
This gives a neat finish, the edges of the ribbon will get turned a bit inward and then sewn down by hand.

 And that was the construction of the main bodice. it was a lot of work, but I am glas that I have something for Christmas. The skirt is currently in progress, but there´ll be a part two for the very same dress.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post and stay tuned to see the 2nd part.