Prom dress continues

I was glad I made that draping piece "#9" larger - it would have been a disaster if I'd cut it according to the pattern piece.

Here it is, with the corresponding piece turned over, showing the interfacing. On both pieces, I have pinned the drape and it would have shrunk the underlying "10" piece by a considerable amount, if I'd had to "stretch" the drape to fit, as the instructions said. I have been trying to follow the instructions to the letter but I just knew something was wrong with this piece. And it did NOT stretch one bit.

Here is the draping pinned to the piece that goes up and around the neck. They actually call this whole piece "the drape" (to distinguish it from upper bodice and side bodice and stuff.) You can see that the underlying, interfaced piece has curved up a little, because the draping overlay is a little bit smaller. Here, those instructions work but not on the back!

Backing up a little, here are all the bodice pieces with their corresponding interfacing pieces stitched to them.

These pieces are obvious! Looks like something Madonna would have worn. The interfacing makes it very structured.

This is the drape that goes on top of the piece.

This is how I gathered all the draping pieces - by hand.

Here's the draping piece pinned on the ungathered edge.

And here it is, all gathered up and basted on.

Back to the midriff - I finished the quilting to the interfacing and then the instructions called for a double layer of interfacing to be hand sewn into the midriff.

The instructions called for a catch stitch so that's what I used to sew in the extra midriff interfacing.

The bodice also called for two layers of interfacing to be sewn in there too. This is the bodice and the midriff, sewn together.

The bodice and midriff, from the right side. I had not, at this stage, sewn the interior or lining on the piece. When I did and after I fitted it on my niece, I had a major problem - it did not meet at the back! I had to devise a way of adding an inch or so of fabric to the back where the zipper will go, without making it look odd.

I decided to quilt a piece of fabric to some lining so it would look like the midriff. We're only talking an extra inch here but I made a good 8 inches (in width) of quilted fabric so I would have room to manoeuver.


Next, I have to attach the extra strip of quilted fabric to the back and then attach the skirts. Whew.

Prom dress II

Oy, this dress IS a lot of work! After I had cut out the dress, I went to buy interfacing. The pattern calls for "hair canvas" so I checked it out at the store. They had it and it was actually looser in weave compared to the heavy duty interfacing, but I over-thought it (the word "hair" bothered me even though it shouldn't have and I worried that it was used in men's suits) and bought the regular interfacing. This kept me up at night, worrying that the bodice wouldn't work if I used the wrong thing. So I went back and bought the proper, called-for hair canvas.

This is lightweight, sew-in interfacing on the right and the heavy duty sew-in interfacing on the left. You can't really tell from the picture but the tighter weave lightweight stuff is thinner and more pliable than the stuff on the left.

The heavy interfacing is on the left again. It is surprising to me that the hair canvas, which I had imagined to be thick and unwieldy, is actually more pliable than the regular interfacing. It is used in several layers in the bodice which is why I was worried about the finished product. But then I figured that the designer of the dress should know what he is doing.

Here are all the pieces of the bodice and the midriff that are cut out of the hair canvas. Yikes.

Here's how I marked the topstitching lines on the midriff. I put pins in, along the stitching line shown on the pattern piece. I marked them on the wrong side of the fabric with chalk. Then I marked the mirror image piece the same way. Then I separated the pieces and sewed along the chalk lines with contrasting basting thread so the line would show up on the right side when it came time to topstitch.

I got a brainstorm to cut the quilt batting with my rotary cutter on the mat. Whenever I have pinned pattern pieces to batting in the past, the batting distorts the pattern piece. Cutting it with the rotary tool eliminated that fussing.

I also thought I'd get less distortion if I hand basted the fabric to the batting and I was right there too. It's a lot more time consuming but way less frustrating.

However, after I pinned the hair canvas pieces to the fabric and batting pieces, I machine basted them together because the hair canvas acted as a backing and sandwiched the batting between it and the fabric.

This is the midriff, all sewed together but not pressed. Very poofy.

Here, I've pressed the midriff three times and used the clapper on it.

Here, I've started the machine quilting. They just call it "topstitching" in the pattern instructions.

I've got a lot more of the quilting done but still haven't finished. And it will need a good pressing when I'm done too.

After I'm done the midriff, I am going to start worrying at (about?) the draping on the bodice. In this photo, you can see there is a small discrepancy between how long the stay piece is and how the draping piece is a little bit shorter. It says "stretch" on the draping piece.

However, there is a huge discrepancy between this stay piece (number 10) and the draping piece (number 9). In the muslin, the draping piece pulled the stay piece up and puckered it. On the other however, I didn't use interfacing and hair canvas and all that in the muslin. I hardly have any of this fabric left so whatever happens, I am going to have to MAKE this work. I did take the liberty of cutting this draping piece wider than the pattern calls for and so we shall see how it will work. I'll do all the other draping pieces first.

The next prom dress

My niece came over to get the dress and she tried it on and I think you'll agree - so cute! Her, not the dress. Well okay, the dress too but she really is. She's still not sure what to do with her hair - all up, part up, curled?

The engineering (or lack of it) allows the dress to sag a little on the side without the shoulder to hold it up. She and her mum are going to figure out what to do about it. I lean toward a small safety pin attaching it under that arm to the bra. We wondered if reefing it tighter would work but there wasn't much room for that maneuver and all that would do would make it tighter. In any event, it's not a deal breaker and I think the pin would work fine.

Now I am onto the next dress. The skirt pieces are large and single layered so I will cut out the smaller bodice pieces first. The straight of grain arrow shows that the skirt is cut on the bias and I am not sure how I am going to work this out on my cutting table. I may have to work on the floor for these pieces.

For all the layers in the bodice, only the midriff is lined. The upper bodice is faced with the the fabric itself. More as it happens!

Prom dress finished!

I'm done! And it all came together smoothly, much to my relief. Not that I expected trouble but when you are sewing for someone else, you kind of hold your breath.

Even when sewing the midriff lining down, on the inside, I tried to keep the stitches tiny and invisible.

I put the zipper in exactly the way the instructions said and it went well too. In this photo, the zipper allowances are still basted together.

This is what the zipper looks like on the inside, with the tops of the tape tucked in and the top edges of the bodice folded under. I took some tiny hand stitches to secure the edges even more and then added a hook and eye at the top.

And here is the dress, on my judy. It doesn't zip up the back because my niece is narrower than I am. And it will look even cuter on her, as she is cute too! I am going to request a copy of a photo of the dress in action but that won't be until June. And now for the Vogue dress!

Prom dress almost finished

Into the home stretch!

First, I had to adjust the back, where I had added an inch extra width "just in case". Not only did I not need that inch, I had to take the back in by another half inch on both sides.

I sewed a new line of basting where the zipper will go and basted the raw edges together and then cut off an inch and a half on both ends of the back. Unfortunately, this made the tops of the two back pieces no longer line up, because they are not mirror images of each other.

I thought about taking the side that was higher all apart, which would include undoing the understitching and everything. Then I thought I would never get it lined up as well as if I just folded it over so that's what I did and sewed it down with tiny stitches. After I press it carefully, it should be invisible on the outside.

Now you can see how the top edges will line up properly once the zipper is in.

Next I hand basted the upper and lower edges of the bubble skirt, so that I could make the gathers evenly. That went surprisingly quickly.

I pinned the soon-to-be gathered skirt to the skirt lining.

And the gathers were remarkably easy to make too. I may have to consider hand basting all my gathers from now on. The thread is much looser than if it was machine basted and so it is easier to pull.

Here, I've sewn the skirt to the lining around the bottom and given that seam a bit of a press in anticipation of understitching the lining.

Here's the bubble skirt, sewed top and bottom to the shorter, narrower lining. I'm ready to attach the skirt to the midriff and the last step will be putting in the zipper!

Prom dress continues

Nobody panic! That's the lining attached to the bodice!

I wanted to be sure that the whole thing fit, as the lining is narrow in order to make the whole bubble skirt effect. I hand sewed it to the midriff with a loose running stitch so that when I do the fitting, I will be able to tell if I need to let out the back darts or not.
Next, I have to run a loose stitch through the bottom and the top of the silk outer skirt so I can gather it up when I sew it to the lining. I have decided to do that by hand so it will be looser than machine stitching and give me an easier gather. Also, my machine seems to be breaking the upper thread again and if cleaning out the bobbin case doesn't work, it will be easier to work with a hand sewn gathering stitch.

Prom dress progresses

Despite my lack of blogging (and responding to comments), I am here working away! To update the boob thing, I have only got three more radiation treatments to go, and then I am done! They are a walk in the park (or a ride on the bike in my case, as I am biking every day to the hospital for them - 17 kms round trip!) compared to chemo. In fact, I am saying these days, "if I can do chemo, I can do ANYTHING."

I worked on the blue coat for a while, before I got the prom dress fabric.

It could turn out okay, I guess. But it seems the sleeves are, like, a foot longer than they should be. In any event, I won't deal with this until I finish the dresses now.

In the meantime, my niece and I bought some turquoise silk charmeuse for the bubble dress. (In the above photo, it is greener than it really is. The next photo is more accurate.)

Beautiful! And as it is real silk, it is surprisingly easy to work with.

I also worked on making the bodice muslin for the Vogue dress so it more accurately represented the real bodice. It must have eleventeen layers! The midriff is quilted.

And there is draping on the outside. That is going to be a pile of work. In this photo, you can just see a glimpse of the magenta fabric she and her mother bought. So I decided to go with the bubble dress first.

Each bodice piece is only cut out once. Because it is asymmetrical, there is no duplication of the pieces.

And each silk piece is backed by the same piece in lining.


I ironed each and every piece first. I laid the lining piece on the ironing board and then laid the silk piece on top of it. Then I pinned them both to the board so that I would be sure they would lie perfectly flat against each other as I went around them and pinned them together. With a lot of pins. Then I sewed them all together.

The bodice gets an additional layer of lining. Here I am making sure that I am pinning the lining pieces together correctly, so that they will be sewed right when I attach the lining to the bodice, right sides together.

Here I am, making double sure they are sewed correctly, before I get them all sewed together. It's because the lining doesn't have a right and wrong side and because the bodice is asymmetrical that I went to this trouble. And you might note that I cut everything out with pinking shears, to prevent raveling and give a softened edge.

Once I sewed the lining to the bodice, I also understitched the lining to keep it from curling out.

(Extreme close up!) Then I had to turn the bodice right side out and attach the shoulder seams and hand stitch that opening closed.

Here it is, pinned onto my Judy. I added extra width to the back pieces, "just in case". I can trim them easily when I do the fitting and establish where the zipper should go. Next, sew the midriff to the bodice and the skirt to the midriff.