Saturday 7 January 2012

Giraffe dress! (Show your working.)

Here's the progress update I promised, complete with pictures and a sort-of explanation of how I did things. I copied the bodice pattern from the red dress I'm wearing in the post from a couple of days ago, and altered the front a little so it looked more like this.


As you can see my drafting methods are exhaustive and highly technical.

I cut out all the bodice pieces first and sewed together the outer fabric, then did an initial fitting. I tried to take photos but apparently I failed Bathroom Mirror Photography 101, so no blank expressions from me as I awkwardly fit the front pieces.

Fun fact: I'm too lazy to wear a bra at home, but I couldn't do a fitting without one. Enter me, sauntering around my house with a bra on over my shirt because I couldn't be arsed getting changed. Pfft. Expending effort, what?

Anyway. Then I started attaching the lining:


To be honest, I sort of winged the skirt. What else is new? I also lost my tape measure (and by
'lost' I mean 'carefully put away somewhere so safe I can't find it'.) Bummer as. It turned out pretty ok though. Lots of hand finishing: the cross over front is handsewn, and I ended up turning and handsewing the lining at the waist seam:


To be honest, sewing chunky gathers like that in a heavy fabric without a walking foot was a bit of a task. I might see if I can commandeer the walking foot which Mum claimed a few years back when I head home next month. Sewing in an invisible zip without an invisible zipper foot (I had one, but I can't see where it went! Hurr hurr) went quite well though, so you know, go team me.

Here's the almost finished product:


It's wrinkling a bit funny under the bust on the right hand side of the photo, so I'll probably tweak that tomorrow, and the ribbon still needs to be sewn on, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with it. I'm still vaguely thinking of making a self-covered belt for it, but I might be too lazy for that. We'll see. Now I'm off to find pictures of HIGH FASHUN capes, because I have fabric left over and this bad boy is just crying out for a wee little caplet.

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