Saturday 13 June 2009

A Little Wedding Dress

Sister is getting married soon. She wanted me to make a simple dress for her little daughter. She gave me an underdress and I made a pattern according to it, just a little bit bigger. And without sleeves.
I drew it on two layers of brocade and cut out. I made it shorter for the later decoration of the bottom.

I double folded the armholes and sewed. I also cut a stripe of gold fabric and sewed it on the silver brocade at the place of the future lacing. It should have been right side to right side :-D

I cut out two identical pieces with the inner shape of the neckline (each from two halves sewn together).

I pinned them together (right to right) and sewed along the outer line.

I cut a straight line inside the lacing's lining and turned it over to the wrong side.
I cut out the neckline and pinned the neck on. I don't know why exactly the neckline was bigger than the neck's inner line:-)

I took two pieces of golden brocade and made stripes for the bottom's decoration from them. I sewed them on, folded the lower side and sewed the dress together at the sides.

I made the eyelets at the lacing. In fact, the dress should be similar to the sister's wedding dress, so I made them by hand as well. I used a tailor's buttonhole stitch.

It's much better than a simple buttonhole stitch which I had been desperate of. It make a sort of a braid in the center and the stitches are nice and regular that way.
I cut out the holes and made all the eyelets.

I had to baste the neck to the body with a slanted stitch for it to be held on the place. I was taking only the lower gold fabric.

At the lacing I interrupted stitching. You can see that at the sewn part, all is clean and no frayed edges stick out behind.

The finished dress with the chemise sister made. As for a little angel... :-)