June 18, 2012

The final dress!

Ooo... How exciting, the final dress post is here!


I firstly lay out my fabric and patterns and cut them out of my satin backed crepe.


I then created my patterns for my interfacing. I did this by drawing a 4cm line from my neck line down, on both front and back pattern pieces. 


I pinned this to my light weight interfacing and cut it out, I then carefully Ironed it to the wrong side of my dress to stop my neck line from stretching due to it being cut on the fold. 


This is my interfacing ironed on to my dress.


I then inserted my  darts into my front dress piece. 


My invisible zip is now inserted.
I then sewed with 1cm SA down from the zip to the bottom of the zip, I unpicked this about 3 times as I kept getting it caught on the bottom of the zip! Not fun at all!


I then sewed my shoulder with a 1cm SA!
This also shows a better picture of my darts.


My sleeve was then attached just like in my toile, this is such a pain to get right, although I think I did rather well, wouldn't you think?


I sewed down my sleeve and side seam with a 1cm SA, it then looked like this. ^^


A close up view of my under arm seam.


My final dress shell!!


The sleeve hanging outwards.


My zip opened.


My zip closed.


The back of my dress shell.

Lining of my final dress...

The difficult bit about the lining was working out which way to sew it as it has to be opposite to the dress shell.


My pattern pieces were lay onto the fabric and cut out separately so as to not mess it up like I did the first time on my satiny lining! 


My sleeve ready to be cut out.


My lining interfacings.


The interfacing ironed on to the back.


The interfacing ironed onto the front.


I sewed in my darts.


My opposite dart.


So I can fit my lining to my zip I had to measure how far down the zip went just like my toile and sew down from there. I did this on the wrong side so I sewed to the top and redid it on the right side of the dress. 


I sewed in my shoulder with a 1cm SA.


The inside seam of my shoulder.


I then did the difficult bit of my dress, attaching the sleeve! I had to unpick a few sections of this, this time! But thankfully it worked and looks better now I re-sewed bits.


A close up view of the sleeve seam.


The attached sleeve on my shoulder! Ha!


A close up of the shoulder on the outside.


Then with 1cm SA I sewed the sleeve as I had already done the side due to marking the zip on the wrong side.


A close up of the underarm seam.


The seam with the zip gap.


A close up of the side seam on the good side.


My lining completed.

What do you think so far?

Fitting the lining to the dress... Trust me this isn't too difficult...


I turned my dress inside out with the lining on the out side. I the pinned the lining to the zip tape like above. (Apologies for the bad images.)


Sew as close to the teeth as possible without getting the thread caught.


I then pinned the neck line, making sure my side seams matched up on the lining and shell.
I sewed this with a 1cm SA.


My finished neck line seam.


My garment turned the right way around and my open zip, works wonders.


My closed zip.

I will add the hem, top stitch and final completed dress in the next couple of days, sorry for the delay.

What do you think?

XOXO



June 17, 2012

Final Dress Toile.

It's getting more exciting now... Toile...

I lay out my fabric for my toile and pinned my pattern pieces on top.
I then cut these out.


I inserted my darts into the front of my dress. 
This is the darts from the inside of my garment.


My darts from the outside of the garment.


I inserted the invisible zip into the left hand side of my garment.


This is the zip from the inside of my garment.


I then sewed down from the zip to the bottom of my dress with a 1cm SA.
The bottoms of my dress are slightly off.


I then sewed my shoulder seam on a 1cm SA.


My shoulder seam on the inside of my dress.


I then attached the sleeve, this is so difficult! I had to make sure I didn't get any little folds as I sewed it together and also make sure it was all evened out equally. (Again sew with a 1cm SA.)


A close up of my sleeve seam.


My whole sleeve seam.


I now had to sew from the tip of the sleeve all the way down to the bottom of my dress, this is a lot easier than it sounds, trust me! 


I have to make sure my tension is ok first or it will bobble like this.


I then fitted it to a size 14 mannequin and took it in just about 2cm on each side and make my left dart larger by 1cm. I also took 2cm off each side of my sleeve.


My 2cm pinned on the left side.


My 2cm pinned under the sleeve.


Making my adjustments. 
(UNPICK THE WHOLE DRESS!)
This is simple, draw my new design lines onto my patterns, from the top of my sleeve diagonally to the bottom, and cut this off.
Lay it on top of my fabric piece and cut off the excess fabric.


Do the same as I did to the sleeve to my back piece.


And again on my front piece...


My added 1cm on my dart.


This is what it will look like before the trimming.

Now... Re-attach the whole dress, this didn't take long this time round as I knew exactly what I was doing and it took me about half an hour.

The lining toile...


It took me FORVER to find some scrap fabric, but eventually a girl in my group found me some.
For this I do pretty much exactly as I did to my lining except I don't put a zip in.


To do this I measured how long my zip was (it was about 19cm) and I sewed down from where the zip would end to the bottom of the dress.
I then attached the rest of dress as I did before except this time it was the opposite way around.

Fitting the Lining...


To attach the lining I began by attaching the zip... 
I did this by folding back the zip tape and sewing the lining to the tape.


I then sewed around the neck line making sure I match the seams at the shoulder and sides.


My matched seams.


The lining and shell pinned at the neck.


My lining sewn to the shell of the dress all done.


My finished lining.
On the final I will do a retaining stitch around the neck.

What do you think?

XOXO