Sorry in advance for some lengthy comments and unnecessary pictures. I wanted this post to be sufficiently detailed if I ever want to refer to it in the future.
*Finished result and try-on pics are at the end of this post.
Fabric and notions I chose (I'm making the dress on the left)
My mom and I looked for small ivory rickrack, but there wasn't any and I found this adorable embroidered daisy trim. I got 3.75 meters. It was more expensive than the fabric which shocked me..
Unlike my previous dress, I took the time to read the instructions prior to starting making this one. I studied the steps from cutting the fabric up to sewing the sleeves to the bodice and didn't go further. I thought that reading the instructions in bite-sized portions would confuse and discourage me less than trying to understand the whole process in one shot.
All that fabric left and only one pattern piece to cut...
... which was nice cuz I cut two pieces incorrectly and had to cut them again...
Because I had studied the steps earlier, the start wasn't so rough (except for the little mistake above). There were surely times of confusion, but it was nothing like my previous dress.
Then I ran into a dilemma when making the sleeves. I would've thought that the rickrack would be a step only done at the end, but we had to fix it on the sleeves right at the beginning. With the daisy trim on the two sleeves and on the collar two times each, I felt that the flowers were too prominent. I wouldn't have worried if the flowers would've been smaller, but they were pretty big.
So my mom and I went to another fabric shop to check if there was something smaller, and if not, I'd simply go with the daisy trim (we hadn't gone to this store earlier because we wanted to buy all of our supplies in one store [doing errands during COVID-19 isn't very pleasant].) We found exactly what I was looking for initially: small ivory rickrack! And for 4 meters it only cost me 1.75 $.
Comparison of daisies vs rickrack on one sleeve. Considering that both sleeves
and the collar will be decorated as such, the rickrack is definitely a safer choice.
Following sewing the rickrack on the lower sleeves, I turned the sleeve facing inside and slip-stitched it (see pic below). I had never slip-stitched before and it was more fun than I thought.
After the sleeves were done, I realized why the instructions had said to trim the seams.
The seams are really visible.
So I removed the slip-stitch I had made in order to trim the seams (and slip-stitched once again).
RIP zigzag stitches
Comparison of untrimmed seams (top) vs trimmed seams (bottom).
The sleeve on the bottom looks much nicer.
It sucked having to redo some work, but it was worth it in the end.
Then I joined the sleeves to the front and back bodice.
Note to self: When sewing a garment that has been basted (for easing), sew with the basting on top (as in the above pic—that way it's easier to arrange the fabric gathers as you sew). Also, use a contrast thread for basting since it's easier to see and remove after.
Stitching the rickrack on the yoke
Sewing the lower rickrack on the yoke was such a burdensome step. Four reasons why:
- Both fabrics are different thicknesses;
- The rickrack strip is very narrow;
- The yoke is curvy;
- You have to sew the rickrack all over the front, sleeves and back (that's freaking long).
Finally. Finished and ironed.
The pattern asked for a 5" zipper, but there weren't any so I took this 8" one.
I'll cut it cuz the skirt will have snaps (btw it isn't fully zipped up in the above pic).
Now the skirt (already...!)
Making the pleats
Joining the skirt to the bodice
?? Not sure how to join both garments.
(Btw, look at the seam on the left that has double pleats... uh)
Still haven't found it
Still figuring it out
After a few hours of fiddling with the skirt, I recognized that I had officially screwed it up. I had noticed two mistakes during this time:
- I had made the side opening on the right side of the skirt instead of the left (this probably happened because I drew the side opening with the pattern piece on the wrong side of the fabric when it should've been on the right side—though it wasn't mentioned in the instructions. 🤷)
- I should've joined the three skirt sections together before making the pleats (I had only joined two of them since I wanted to make the pleats on a single layer of fabric.)
About time
What happened after split my heart. It was the same feeling as when I had ruined my camera with a rhinestone while decoden-ing it. But the issue here was that I couldn't get in the dress. My shoulders nor my hips could pass through the waist. After hours of trying to join the skirt to the bodice and finally working it out, I couldn't even try the bloody dress on and the only way to fix this was to detach the skirt and make a new one. \(T▿T)/
It might be obvious that the dress wasn't wearable since I had put the skirt opening on the opposite side of the bodice opening. However, I still wonder how it would have worked even with both openings on the left; the bodice having a 5" zipper and the skirt working with snaps, how would the waist "enlarge" for the shoulders or the hips to pass through?
Not sure why the zipper was drawn as such considering that zippers have a stop at the bottom?
Anyway, the following day, I unsewed the skirt, bought a longer zipper and supplementary fabric (thank God there was still enough available at the store) and restarted the skirt over. I felt I had gone through the 7 stages of grief within 24 hours.
The dress before I removed the skirt from the bodice
You can't see it in the above picture, but the skirt has two seams in the front on each side. Not only they took me ages to position symmetrically when joining the skirt to the bodice, but I also realized that these two seams popped up because I had made the pleats incorrectly at the seams (that also explains the double pleats at the seams noted earlier).
I had cut a slit on the left side to try the dress on and see at least what it looked like on me...
(and also because I thought I could arrange something with snaps but gave up on the idea).
The dress fitted well. Had it looked crappy I probably would've called it quits.
Skirt v.02
I used a pencil to make the pleats this time and it worked better than the needles.
Left open a part of the seam for the zipper (any seam on the skirt)
Skirt successfully joined to the bodice (*ﾟ▽ﾟ*) It was so much easier...
basically aligning the skirt's opened seam to the bodice's zipper and pinning it before stitching.
Stitching the zipper. Was quite dumb to place the needles horizontally as it's impossible
to zip up afterwards to check if zipper is okay. Vertically pinned needles work just fine.
After sewing the zipper, the bottom part on the right had its fabric slightly folded,
so I unsewed the seam down to the bottom, flattened the zipper, stitched, and resewed the seam.
Closing the hole by hand (I didn't dare using my sewing machine there.)
Sewed a "stop" at the bottom of the zipper, cut the excess zipper and did other small finishes.
Then I tried the dress on, and not only I could put it on, but it fitted me nicely.
The thing is, I wasn't even sure if what I had been doing was right (the pattern had never instructed to use a long zipper) and I hadn't found a lot of info on YouTube. I don't know why the pattern didn't suggest a long zip that went down the skirt. It would've personally saved me a lot of trouble.
My mom had seen these buttons at the store, but I didn't like them...
Still, I kept thinking about them and ended up buying them.
Buttons have been put! My mom sewed them hehe.
I prefer these buttons far more than the purple ones I had initially chosen.
Ironing the hem before sewing
Of course, the dress wouldn't be complete without its matching belt. I bought one for 2 $ at a charity shop. The colour was a dark purple, so before covering it with the fabric, I covered it with white cotton.
I'm using fabric glue.
Glueing the other side
I stitched one side of the fabric so that when it laps over the other, the edge looks more finished.
Glueing
Covering the buckle
Finished~
Darn it!
I accidentally put glue on the bottom... so I restarted over.
Done (´∇｀)
My mom sewed belt loops on each side of the dress afterwards. The dress would've been finished by then but... something had been bugging me for a while and I naturally had to point it out at the very end of the project. I thought it was a bit weird that the instructions didn't tell us to put interfacing where the buttons are, but I brushed it off thinking that the lack of it was justified. But now that I could button the dress, I could see that both edges were flimsier than my previous dress that had interfacing... so I unsewed the edges to put interfacing. Despite how necessary I knew it was, I hate having to remake something that involves unsewing something that has been well-sewed.
There was one edge that had the buttonholes already made, but my mom thought of a clever way to insert the interfacing by cutting half-slits so that the interfacing would separate where there was a buttonhole... not sure if this is clear...
My mom then resewed the buttons that I had unsewed. Let's say I'll always put interfacing there from now on, whether the instructions mention it or not... Oh and also at the zipper, cuz I realized that I should've also put interfacing there. However, I'll let that one slip by for this time, I don't want to mess with the zipper.
Well, the dress is done... at last.
I'm so happy with the result. I love the fabric and the design, I think it's really unique. 🌸 The making of the bodice went pretty well, but the skirt was the complete opposite. Nonetheless, I was lucky to be able to start over and learned from this experience.
I was relieved that the dress didn't need any additional alterations on my part. The pattern was for a 30" bust and a 25" waist and I expected I'd need to make the bust bigger for the dress to fit, but there was no need to.
My mom helped me take pictures with the dress on~
Tried to take some casual pictures again.
No idea why I tend to avoid posing in these dresses, but these pics are hard to shoot.
I like the volume of the skirt even if I'm not wearing a petticoat nor a sukapan underneath.
Pic without the sun—so no yellow hues on the dress
Anyway, let's jump to some pictures of food. Here's a Tropézienne brioche tart from Ricardo I made on Mother's Day... excellent and lightly sweet. The only thing is that my dough didn't rise as much as it was supposed to, but the taste was very good. ◝(⁰▿⁰)◜
This being said, I bought a real Tropézienne at a pastry shop a week later and it was so good and much better than the one I had made (too bad I didn't take a picture.)
Grilled cheese with an orange; by my mom
Salad (onion, cucumber, tomato) with green spices; by my mom
Edit June 6th 2020: My mom bought a Tropézienne tart from the pastry shop and I got to take pics of it!
The bottom layer of the cake has been lightly soaked in some liquid—like water and sugar? My description doesn't make it sound good, but it's a unique and delicious texture. The middle is a custard/whipped cream, vanilla-flavoured and light in texture. The upper layer is the same brioche cake as the bottom (but not soaked) and on the very top is some kind of dough crumble. Very unique too. This has become one of my favourite desserts.
Edit August 29th 2020: My mom washed the dress in the washing machine (delicate cycle) and a part of the rickrack on the left sleeve all ripped out...
Fortunately, she sewed a white patch under the sleeve and the dress was saved. (•́⌄•́๑)૭ Although more bothersome, I'll very probably handwash my dresses that have rickrack in the future.
You can see a bit of the patch through the upper sleeve, but I take anything over the hole!
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