Charlotte and I started cutting out a new dress for her. She has a lovely red wool with a square pattern. We decided to do it with a keyhole neck, so checked my scrap drawer, and found the orange twill scrap left over from Ranghilds orange twill dress The orange looked good with the red, so we went with that.
However, by the time we got the neckline sewn to the body rectangle ti was already 22:00, so we opted to put it down for the night and finish cutting fabric tomorrow.
Dress sewing advice:
Each sleeve piece gets an orange edge sewed to the cuff end. Fix the position of the orange bit (they were just pinned kinda in place) so that the bottom edges are perfectly aligned, then sew them together 5 to 7 mm in from the edge. Then flip the orange bit over to the outside of the sleeve, and, using a contrasting colour thread, baste it into position using really long, easy to remove stitches, to anchor the end in place (like I did on the neckline), and then more big stitches to smooth down most of the orange (like I did on the neckline). Finally, turn under the very edge of the orange about 5 to 7 mm in and sew the edge down with the same stitch you have been using on the hem
Finish hemming all of the other pieces.
To assemble the dress: Attach two pieces to one another using a whip stitch, going around the two edges, tightly spaced so it holds the together nicely.
- Sew the sleeves to the shoulders, lining up the exact middle of the sleeve to the middle of the shoulders.
- Sew one large skirt triangle to each side of the body
- Sew the side pieces to the body, lining up the top corner before the triangle with the armpit so that the little triangle at the top so the side bit serves to widen the upper bit of the sleeve a little. Also line up the bottom hems of both the side piece with the bottom of the triangle, an let the diagonal part of the triangle stretch or shrink enough to ensure a smooth match.
- sew the sleeves shut, making certain that the cuffs line up