::Sewing:: Special Dress for a Special Day - Behind the seams 2

Following on from my previous posts about this dress. I'm geekily recording the constructions steps of this dress. It can be a handy reference when I revisit in the future.

I actually ended up taking two lots of photos for the original post about this dress.

I used the second lot in the first post, but I wanted to include some from the first photo session because I really like the sun flare :)

~Construction~
When I'm sewing I usually try to sew as many seams as possible before I need to press or switch between machines. It means the project comes together quicker. And we all like getting a project finished :)

When I cut out the final garment I made sure that the seam allowances for the bodice, bodice lining and back skirt pieces liked up with the selvage edge so that I didn't need to finish these seams.

I started by assembling the bodice and sleeves and then inserted the sleeves. The skirt was made after which included sewing the inseam pockets. The zipper was put in after joining the bodice and skirt. I attached the zipper snap tab while I machine sewed the bodice lining centre back along the zipper. I was running out of time at this stage so I had to prioritise the next few steps, so I sewed the hem. To finish up I hand stitched the bodice lining waistline to the waistline seam allowance; sewed the snap to the zipper snap tab and finally the bra strap carriers.

Putting the bodice together

• Stay stitched front and back bodice necklines, bodice lining necklines and waistline of skirt pieces.
• Sewed front and back darts for bodice and bodice lining and darts at top of sleeve; pressed seams and pressed darts flat so they pointed to the centre of the body or down and pressed sleeve darts to the back.
• Sewed 3 rows of gathering stitches at top of sleeves.
• Overlocked the sleeve hem seam allowances without cutting any allowance off
• Overlocked around the outside of pocket pieces.
• Basted along the sleeve hemlines to make turning and pressing the hem easier; pressed hem up along the basted line
• Sewed side and shoulder seams for bodice and bodice lining; sewed sleeve seam.
• Pressed bodice and sleeve seams and flat, then open.
• Overlocked sleeve seam allowance.
• Pressed sleeve hem up along basting.
• Sewed sleeve hems.
• Basted the bodice and bodice lining around the armholes. Inserted sleeves into bodice.

Putting the skirt together

• Sewed pocket pieces to side seam of skirt front and backs using a seam allowance slightly smaller than 5/8” (1.5cm). Pressed seam allowances flat and open.
• Overlocked skirt side seams, including where the pocket joined the skirt piece, but not around the pocket (that was already done).
• Sewed side seam of skirt at top, backstitched at top of pocket opening, basted along pocket opening, backstitched at bottom of pocket opening, sewed seams to bottom.
• Sewed around pocket bag, backstitched at beginning and end. Pressed side seams and the pockets to the front.
• Basted the top of the pockets bags to the skirt waistline

Finishing up

• Sewed skirt to the bodice main fabric (thinking about it now I probably could have sewed the bodice lining in this seam too, but I’d probably have to finagle it at the zipper, hmmm, something to think about next time).
• Overlocked the waistline seam.
• I made the zipper snap tab by cutting a little rectangle of lining fabric and sewing along one long and short side, snipped the corner off, turned it the right way out and pressed it flat.
• To insert the zipper I basted the centre back seam, pressed it open, and basted the tape of the invisible zipper to the seam allowance on either side. After unpicked the centre back basting I sewed the invisible zipper in properly.
• I hand stitch the top of the zipper tape down, positioned and pinned the zipper snap tab where I wanted it, placed the bodice lining and bodice right sides together (remembering to fold under a little of the lining at the waistline) and sewed along the zipper tape to secure the lining down in the centre back.
• Overlocked the hem of the skirt.
• Hemmed the skirt by basting along the hemline to make turning the hem easier, pressed the hem up.
• Hand sewed the waist of the bodice lining down.
• Hand sewed the snap onto the zipper tab
• Hand sewed the bra strap carriers to the bodice lining shoulder seams

Here are all the related posts :) This Post Sewing FO post Behind the seams 1 - Pattern Adjustments Behind the seams 2 - Construction

~Final Comment~
So this wasn't the quickest make in the world, but it was pretty straight forward to sew together the final dress after sewing so many toiles. I think that bra strap carriers are going to be a new staple in my garments. I've made a few more formal garments this year, and I've seen my sewing improve a lot over that time.

Do you have any tips or tricks for sewing your garments quicker? Are there any special techniques or features you like to put in your garments?
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you :)

Until next time,

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::Sewing:: Special Dress for a Special Day - Behind the seams 1 (picture heavy)

This is a follow-up of this post. I really like geeking out and recording all the steps I’ve taken to make a more involved garment. It can be a handy reference when I revisit in the future.
In this case I was writing all about the pattern adjustment and construction notes for the bridesmaid dress I made and realised it was turning into another epic post so I’ve decided to split it up into 2 posts.

As I was drafting the patterns for the dress I decided that I wanted to add seam allowance to the pattern pieces instead of eyeballing it as I was cutting out fabric, so a lot of time was spent adding seam allowances to pattern pieces with a grading ruler.

Something else to note, as I was sewing each toile I traced all the pieces including markings onto the muslin fabric, so that was a bit time consuming, but I like doing it that way so I can also trace the markings onto the fabric too.

I decided to fool around with Inkscape to illustrate the changes I made to my pattern blocks. It took me a bit of time, but I found it really fun. The illustrations aren't to scale because I scanned in mini-patterns and used them to trace around in Inkscape and then chopped and changed them.

So here we go I’m diving straight into my pattern adjustments.

~Pattern Adjustments~

Pattern Blocks

Bodice and sleeves
To start I drafted the neckline shape that I wanted on the front and back bodice, making sure that they would meet in a smooth line at the shoulder seam. It had to be as deep at the centre front as the neckline on my bodice block; and wide at the shoulders, but not wide enough to show bra straps. That was going to be easy on the front bodice because there are side and waist darts on the pattern block. I traced the front bodice and then drew in a new neckline.

Front bodice adjustment

On the back bodice there is a waist and shoulder dart on the pattern block, so I had to move the shoulder dart to draw a new wide neckline. Otherwise, the new neckline would have crossed into the shoulder dart. After tracing the back bodice block I moved the shoulder dart to further along the shoulder so it would be out of the way of the new neckline. I did that by cutting just to the dart point and rotating it, but really I should have rotated it from the back horizontal balance line; which is kind of the part of the back that sticks out the most (I think).

Bodice Back Block

After drawing in the new neckline I decided I would rotate the back shoulder dart to the neckline, because that was what the peony has.
The sleeves were shortened for the first toile with no other adjustments.

Shortened sleeve

So after the first toile I decided I didn't like the back neck dart. I also needed to tweak the sleeve because there was too much fullness at the back of the sleeve.

So for my next toile I decided to make a couple of changes. I moved the back upper dart to the armhole, but rotated from the back horizontal balance line (so kind of where the shoulder blade sticks out). For the sleeves I removed 1 cm out of one sleeve head by moving the dart leg towards the back of sleeve over, but left the other one as was. When trying this toile on I didn’t like the back dart at all. Removing some of the sleeve ease helped reduce puckering when inserting the sleeve. But I didn’t like the way the back looked at all. It looked a bit too fitted (read tight).

I thought I would try to remove the upper back dart and keep the original sleeve to see how that would look. So I unpicked one side of the toile pressed out the darts in the bodice back and sleeve and resewed it up. I liked the way it looked way better.

Instead of illustrating each step of the changes I made to the back bodice I just illustrated what would have been the simplest way for me to make the changes I did.

Horizontal Balance Line (HBL) lowered down the back like it is on my actual block.
Slash through the middle of the dart to the HBL and from the armscye along the HBL to the first slash

Rotate to close the shoulder dart.

Smooth the shoulder and the gap in the armscye

Bodice pieces matched at shoulders at the outer shoulder.

Redraw the back neckline so there is a smooth join at shoulder

Bodice Back comparison. Yellow is the original and teal is the adjusted one.

The final bodice toile was made to make sure all style and fit adjustments worked and the bodice and sleeve pattern drafts were good to go.

Skirt and Pockets
Luckily drafting the skirt was relatively straight forward compared to the bodice. I only sewed one toile and made a couple of changes
I traced off the front and back of my 2 dart skirt block and rotated out the darts. I wanted a little bit of extra flare at the side so there wasn't a 'bump' in the side seam so I extended the side seam from just above the hip line. I quickly checked to make sure the side seams matched up but placing the pattern pieces on top of each other.

Skirt Blocks

Blocks shortened to desired length

Skirt darts closed

Flare added to the side seams of skirt blocks.

Hem drawn in so it hits the centre of each skirt panel hem

Finished skirt front and back patterns

I only made this first skirt pattern draft hip length, because I just wanted to see how it would fit in hip area and I could just extend the skirt sides by drawing a straight line as I was cutting out the toile.

The pocket was the final piece I needed to draft. I traced around the top of my front skirt block and rotated out the darts again. I took the pocket I had drafted for my S2444 and positioned it to where I wanted it on the skirt piece and traced around it. Voila pocket done!

Pocket drawn drawn onto the skirt front pattern piece and
then matched against the back skirt piece.

I toiled the skirt and pockets and sewed it all up.
The fit was a bit off at the hips where the pockets were. The pocket opening sort of stuck out. I figured it was because I had added flare to the skirt sides too far down the side seam. So I drew new front and back skirt pattern pieces, the whole piece this time, not just the top, and moved the starting point for the side flare up to where the side seam started to curve down. I had to adjust the side seam line on the pockets too.

Skirt pocket pattern piece

I didn’t bother making another skirt toile because the changes were pretty basic.

Here are the final skirt pattern pieces

Here are the adjusted pattern pieces laid over the original block patterns.

~Final Comment~
I’m really glad I sewed so many toiles. It gave me a chance to work out how I was going to sew the final garment and was good practicing techniques like inserting sleeves and how best to sew inseam pockets.

Do you have any special fitting needs that make it difficult to buy RTW? 
If you could design your ideal party dress what would it look like?
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you :)

On the day I didn't get any photos of the dress and forgot to tell Mr S to get some for me.

So I 'borrowed' some from someone else so you could get a peak at the dress on the day.

  

Until next time,

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::Sewing:: Navy S2444 - Behind the Seams Part 2 Pattern adjustments

In this behind the seams I'm going to go over the pattern adjustments I made to S2444.
Here is S2444 Behind the Seams Part 1.

BODICE ADJUSTMENT
I couldn't find anything on the interwebs about it so I thought I would write this post so hopefully someone will stumble up on it in their time of need.

I traced the front bodice pattern on some paper (I use a giant roll of kitchen grease proof paper and tape strips together). I then marked in the seam allowances - the blue outline. I drew in the cutting lines for the adjustment in pencil.

To make my life easier I drew the 3/4" guide the FBA on some spare paper.

Next it was cutting time!
I slashed the pattern from the inner waist dart to the shoulder seam line.
Upon reflection I should have cut from the bust point to the armscye.

To fix that, I drew a line from the armscye to the bust point and tapped the top of the waist-shoulder slash.
Then I slashed from the side seam to the bust point. Remembering to make a little hinge.
Using the 3/4" guide that drew I lined up the waist-bust point slash along the lines.

I scratched my head for awhile here because I thought I would have to make a side dart because of the adjustment. But then I had an 'Aha!' moment and just rotated the side dart closed.

Now I slashed from bust point to centre front fold line and moved it down 3/4", using my cutting ruler as a guide.

I put some paper behind all the gaps and stuck it all together. I redrew the inner waist dart-in black.

I wasn't happy with the uneven waist darts so I redrew the darts-in red below (sorry about the bad photo).
To calculate how to change the darts I measured between the dart legs of both darts at the seam line.
Added them together and then divided by 2.
In the picture below I also have drawn in the change in the side seam/waist seam with the side seam pivoting out to add 1" to the waistline.

Then I retraced the whole pattern including the FBA and the side seam adjustment.
I drew the dart legs in light blue so I put a bit of paper behind so you could see them in the photo.

SKIRT ADJUSTMENT
I needed to adjust the skirt pieces so they would match up with the bodice, because I had adjusted the bodice side seam by moving it out 1" at the waistline.

I kept this adjustment simple. I slashed both the front and back pattern pieces from the waist to the hem and added 1" stripes to match the 1" adjustment made on the bodice.

POCKET ADJUSTMENT
The pocket that is provided in S2444 is just a basic side seam pocket. I haven't much experience with them, but I just know that having a pocket flapping around in the skirt would annoy me.
So I decided to adjust the skirt so that It attached at the waist seam to stop 'pocket-flap'.

I laid the original pocket pattern on the front skirt, with the pocket facing inwards and the sides seam notches matching.
Initially I laid the pocket piece so that the pocket was facing out, but soon realised my mistake. You can see that I started to trace the side seam in faint red below. 

I drew a line from the 'outer-most' part of the pocket straight up to the waistband.

Then I laid the pocket pattern under the skirt pattern and drew a notch where the pocket cutting line would match up with the skirt waistline.

Then I drew in the seam lines and cutting lines on the right side of the pocket pattern.

I hope all of that made sense. Holla at me if you need some help - just pop a comment below.

Have you been puzzled about how to make a pattern adjustment? What did you do?
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you :)

Until next time,

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::Sewing:: Navy S2444 - Behind the Seams Part 1

I showed my Navy S2444, but I didn't tell you about the journey from pattern to a finished dress. I thought it would be interesting for people who don't sew much.

There was a lot involved in the making of this dress. I want to make some notes about the process mainly for my own reference, but if other people get some value out of it that's awesome!

I'm going to have to break this up into a few posts, because there is just so much involved. I'm not going to go over every step in detail, but there are some things I will expand on.

Simplicity 2444 Construction Steps This is a quick and dirty list of steps I took to make S2444 Traced size 20 to paper Transferred seam lines on toile using a tracing will and wax paper Sewed toile; inserted a zipper in the centre back of the muslin with the stopper at the neck  Increased bottom of bodice side seam at waist by 1 inch on both front and back FBA - 3/4 inch increase adjustment for a D cup (as per The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting, p130). I was completely baffled by how to do this over 2 darts. Google searches came up with nothing. Rotated side waist seam increase from FBA to waist dart closer to the front Raised both dart apexes 1 inch. Split dart uptake between the two darts (both darts are now 2.5 inches)  Added 1 inch to side of skirt patterns Adjusted pocket pattern piece so they attached at the waist Wrote a quick construction checklist Cut dress fabric Cut bodice lining fabric Staystitched bodice necklines - outter and lining, front and back Sewed outter and lining bodices at shoulder seams, pressed, finished seams Sewed bodice to lining at neckline, pressed, clipped and finished seams Sewed bodice to lining at armholes, pressed, clipped and finished seams Turned the bodice right side out - had to pull the back pieces to the front through the shoulder channel Sewed the bodice side seams - 1 continuous seam for outter and lining Sewed skirt centre front seam, pressed and finished seams Basted front and back skirt pleats (the centre front pleats where a nightmare!) Basted pleats at the skirt waist seam Sewed pockets to skirt front and backs side seams, pressed, finished seams Sewed the skirt front and back together at side seams (going around pockets), pressed, finished seams Basted pocket tops to skirt waist seam Attached bodice outter to skirt waist, pressed, finished seams Basted the back seam where the zipper would go, sewed the lower seam Hand basted the zipper in place Machine sewed the zipper Hand sewed the bodice lining to the waist seam and zipper tape Finished the hem edges (or tried to before my overlocker tried to eat the fabric) Hemmed the dress

I used some of the techniques from The Couture Dress Craftsy class to make this dress.

I made a toile (a.k.a. Muslin - which is a test garment) using some muslin.

I traced the seam lines onto my toile.
I actually accidentally traced and thread traced the seam lines onto the toile.
To fix this I just used the quilting guide on my sewing machine set to 5/8" and traced the seam lines.

I started by fitting the bodice. I thought this would be the hardest part to fit, but once it was done the rest would go smoother. I picked a size 20 on the pattern and compared my measurements with the pattern. They were pretty close so I thought I'd sew the straight size to see how it was.

I inserted an upside down zipper to make trying it on easy. I nearly sewed it in with the stopper at the waist - lucky I dodged that bullet.

When I sewed it up the waist was too tight. So the first adjustment I made was to increase the waist seam.

From there I made an FBA (full bust adjustment)

The original front bodice pattern

The front bodice pattern with the FBA adjustments

I did a final muslin and was happy with the fit so I moved on to my fashion fabric and lining fabric.

That's enough for now I think.

Until next time,

Do you like to remember the nitty gritty of something you make? 
If so, How do you make notes about it?
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you :)

Until next time,