Mint Seersucker Dress

I was spending the day with Louella recently and re-discovered her stash of vintage sewing patterns. I found one in my size and she let me borrow it. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Whitecliffe mocking up a toile. It needed a few adjustments, mainly along the bust, and the waist was too small. The waist was easy to fix; the bust, not so much. I busted out my Vogue Sewing book which has a heap of helpful pattern adjustment tutorials.

After making the adjustments, I went fabric shopping (personally my favourite part!).

I found some delicious mint seersucker and bought it right away! I also got some off-white bias binding and various other notions. It wasn't until I got home that I realised that this will be the third green dress I've made, and I've only made three dresses! I really need to branch out.

I cut everything out using the adjusted pattern pieces. This stuff was really hard to draw on with the tailor's chalk. It is slightly stretchy, and the chalk doesn't transfer very well to the fabric. 

I pulled out a fabric remnant to use for an in-seam pocket that I can hopefully just chuck in there. I love pockets in dresses!

This is going to be a dress where I do everything properly. No cutting corners or being lazy, and making sure to plan where everything is going to go before starting to sew. The toile helped a lot in that I knew how to sew it before I used the fashion fabric.

This probably sounds bad, but it completely blew my mind when Louella informed me you can finish seams before you actually sew them! Before sewing the bodice together, I bias-bound the edges. This helps avoid the awkward binding into seam intersections that was happening on the last couple of dresses.

Seams that weren't really going to be seen were zig-zagged (and hopefully correctly). I bound the outside of the facing because I love binding things.

I finished the bodice section in a couple of days, then started cutting out the skirt sections. There are four, and they are about one metre squared. I managed to cut out three, then realised I only had half a metre left! I figured I had converted the yardage incorrectly to metres, or used the wrong yardage altogether. While the bodice has been completed for a while, I only managed to grab the rest of the fabric before Christmas. Soon I'll get started on the skirt, and I'll be able to show you the finished dress!