Wednesday 1 April 2015

Progress on the skater dress

Progress update on my skater dress.


I decided to be brave, or foolish(!) last night and cut out the pieces for the dress in the blue fabric I wanted to use. It took far longer than I wanted it to, but I didn't want to screw it up. The fabric is more brighter blue but my camera doesn't pick it up very well!


I've sewn all the darts, then zigzagged the raw edges of the bodice. I prefer sleeveless dresses so I've also done the raw edges of the shoulders. I'm planning on using bias binding to tidy the armholes. I may play around with cutting more of the fabric away though, I'm not sure yet. 

I need to recut the facing neckline piece. On my toile I noticed that it came up short on both shoulders so that the seams weren't aligned once I sewed the facings to the bodice. This time I cut the piece longer but while pinning thought it was fine and cut it to match the length. Once again I screwed it up, because once I'd the sewn the seam it's too short again, so I need to recut with an additional 1.5cm on each side.

I started zigzagging the raw edges of the skirt pieces, but I'm struggling with the curves as its making the edge flute in some places. My machine chews up the fabric quite easily so I've had to zigzag further away from the edge than I'd like but it's still within the seam allowance. The fluting is worse on the areas where I veered too closely to the edge, but I might have stretched it as it's on the bias of the fabric. My bobbin ran out in the middle of the front skirt piece so I decided that was enough for one day! I'm on nights this week so won't be able to do quite as much as I'll have less time and focus/concentration during the day after sleeping.