Finished, worn, loved

I finished my dress in plenty of time to wear to dinner last night. I was right about the bias dropping. I don't know how much extra it dropped for being hung for two days, but I was confident when I hemmed it that it'd be fine.

You can see in this photo what a big difference there is in length around the hem. The longest point is on the true bias.

I had no helpers when it came time to mark the hem, so took a deep breath and did it solo. I put the dress on and marked where I wanted it to hit. It was quite a challenge to hold it steady against my thigh while I marked a point just below my knee! From there it was a simple matter of putting it on my dummy and marking it by measuring up from the floor with a long ruler. My fear doing it solo is that while my dummy is very similarly proportioned to me it isn't as accurate as getting a helper to mark it on me. I figured it wasn't going to be significantly out even if it was a tad. (I've done this before with success, but not for a while). I have one of those chalk puffer thingies for marking your own hems, but I'm, um, not sure which box in the roof it's in.

Anyway, after doing my baby hem on the dress and pressing it and putting on a decent bra (which makes a huge difference!), it looks like this:

Photo credit to the overexcited nine year old who was looking forward to being babysat by her aunt and staying up past bedtime to help her with the twins!

And here's the one she took of me and David just before we left. That's Nicholas' head in the corner. Nothing happens in this house without his investigating! David's shirt is one of approximately 15+ I have made over the years for him or his twin brother. It's my absolute favourite, Burda 8471 I can churn one out in no time - the fit needed very little tweaking, so he doesn't need to be involved till I hand him a completed shirt. He likes this.

We had a great dinner with my parents (Dad's thanks for making the boat cover). It was great fun being with just them - usually when we catch up there are lots of other family members around, and it was really good having a long uninterrupted time to natter. We reminisced about all sorts of things, like our family reunion tramp of the Milford Track when I was 15. It started raining within 5 minutes of the boat dropping us off, we nearly got held up for a day by flooding on the track, the McKinnon pass was covered in mist (and rain of course) so we slogged up all those zigzags and didn't get to see any of the view, and it stopped raining AS I WALKED OUT AT THE FAR END! (The Sutherland Falls were spectacular though.) Dad got the best work day of his life at a similar time (my bitter and twisted memory is that it was a week later, but he thinks not) by being flown over the area in glorious sunshine in a helicopter to inspect some tie-down thing he had designed for a radio mast up a mountain in the area. Tough life.

Ahh - that's better!

Because I really can't leave well enough alone, here's the pic I took after I pressed the CB seam and checked that the dress was hanging straight! It's still not perfect, but I declare it Good Enough. The slight rippling you can see in the zip seems to be caused by the gaps between the sections on my dummy. As far as I can tell when I try it on they aren't there.

Now I can move on ;-)

Who was I kidding?

Um, yeah, I had that zip unpicked and redone within an hour of my last post! Natasha was right - it would bug me every time I looked at it. Thanks everyone for the helpful comments. The seam isn't on the true bias, and being a back seam it has a curve at the waist, further complicating things. My wedding dress was also stretch charmeuse cut on the bias, and I had to do the zip a couple of times to get it right. Fortunately I remembered yesterday what I did - I stretched the fabric as far as I could as I applied the zip. You'd expect that to make the zip very ripply, but it actually counteracts the weight of the skirt almost perfectly. I took a very hurried pic after I finished but before I pressed it. (Twins were waking up and sewing time was over for the day, sigh.....)

If you click on it you can see it bigger. When I put the pic on the computer I realised that one side looks fine and one puckered, but I swear both were smooth when I tossed it on the dummy! I think it "caught" on the fuzzy dummy cover as I carried it outside. Anyway, sleepless night averted, and I'm now happy with the zip. (Or I will be after I press it and check it is smooth on me.)

I left it on the dummy overnight to let the bias drop. Since the fabric has elastane in it it is less susceptible to dropping, but I'm still expecting to have to even out the hem. Today's job is to finish the neckline and armhole edges, and then I'll leave it on the dummy overnight again before hemming it tomorrow.

Do I or don't I?

So far today I've joined the two halves of the dress, and I'm happy with the fit. However, I'm not thrilled with the CB zip/seam. I basted that sucker with two lines of stitching before I sewed it in, and I tried it on the dummy about five times while I was working on it. It was flat and smooth when I did it, but on the dummy it kind of puckers at the waist. I showed David when he came home for lunch and he didn't see the puckers till I pointed them out.

If you click on the picture you can see a bigger view. I took the shot outside in bright sunlight to show as much detail as possible. I have a bit more butt than the dummy, so it sits more smoothly over my backside.

So my question is this - is it worth ripping out that zip and trying again? David reckons that it is not noticable enough to be worth it, and I'm scared that a rework won't improve it to any significant degree. I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to be tossing and turning all night trying to talk myself into leaving it, and in the morning I'm going to rip the bugger out and do it over. And I'll feel so much better for doing so. (I did say I'm a bit inclined to be anal.)

Finished party dress, and MY dress

Here is J's finished dress on my dummy. She forgot to bring her undergarment when she picked it up, so I didn't see it on her. She did bring the belt and shoes she's going to wear with it. I love that red! It sits better on her than the dummy (as most things do), but you get the idea. I made red thread belt loops to hold the belt in place, so she can never wear it belt less now!

Gail asked why I didn't pin the neckline stay tape directly to the inside. Basically, because I am incredibly anal. (There's a reason I call my blog Everything Just Sew!) Bodies can be asymmetrical, and to ensure the neckline fits her properly I had to pin it from the right side. If I'd done it inside out there's a chance it would have sat differently if one shoulder was higher than the other, for example.

So after that was done, it was time for MY dress! I had no problem picking fabric and pattern from my collection. I got to it yesterday while the twins were asleep. I was planning to get as much done as possible, so needed fuel. I like this fuel. I chuck them all in a bowl so I never know what flavour I get till I eat it. (Entertainment as well as a snack!) Better not do it too often or I'll undo all the effort I've put in losing 10kg and my dress won't fit.

For my pattern I chose Vogue 2786, a vintage pattern I've had for a couple of years. I'm not keen on long dresses, so shortened it to about knee length. That also saved a LOT of fabric, since it's cut on the bias. I've had these two printed stretch satins for a couple of years as well. I love that one is a negative image of the other. I figured that would highlight the gathered section without being too big a contrast.

I'd traced it a couple of years ago to make in a cotton, but the fabric turned out to be elasticated and pulled into a wide seersucker effect when I prewashed it. Totally inappropriate for this dress, so the pattern sat forlornly waiting for the right fabric. A quick measure showed that while most of me is back at pre-baby size, my bust is still at production volume and I needed a bit more room there! The easiest way to get it was simply to add a bit extra at CF and CB and figure it out with fitting.

Here's one of the gathered insets sewn to it's stay. It's a bit hard to see, but the corners curl up because the stay is a very tight fit. This should make the inset sit nice and snug against my body, which will make the gathers sit in tightish folds - there's nothing worse than floppy gathers sitting around your middle!

And here's one completed half pinned to the dummy. I've done both halves, and hope during today's nap to get them joined together. The pattern has you do a hand rolled hem at the edges, but I don't fancy that - too wimpy for armholes and neckline for my taste. I'm going to use narrow strips of self fabric as facings instead. They also use a conventional zip, which I've ditched in favour of an invisible one, and I raised the back. Several months at the gym mean I could wear a low back with confidence, but no amount of work at the gym is going to render my front capable of going without a bra and I don't fit my low backed one at the moment! I'm really not looking forward to hemming this. Bias cut stretch charmeuse. Oh yay.