from somewhere in my imagination

Lisette Sew A Long - Let's Get Some Sleeves on This Dress

Where were we again?  What day is it?  Whatever day it is I'm back, so lets get this show back on the road.

By now you should hopefully have your dress joined together and you are ready to add your sleeves.  When I tried on my dress at this point I really liked how it looked without sleeves so I have come up with an alternative finish for that one.

Start by folding your sleeves right side together and sewing the seam.  Finish using your chosen method.

 

Finger press in the fold line at the top of the sleeve.  I hope that makes sense?  Opposite to the seam...

With the dress turned inside out poke a sleeve, right side facing out, through the sleeve hole.  If you are using buttons then start on the side without the buttons because it is easier to match the top.

Match the line you have finger pressed with the shoulder seam in the bodice and pin.  Make sure that the sleeve is straight.

Now match the side seam of the dress with the seam in the sleeve and pin.

Pin around the under arm of sleeve from the seams to the notches.

Like the yoke front you are supposed to sew a basting stitch and gather between the notches.  As for the yoke I chose to put in my own gathers rather than rely on the basting thread.  If you want to baste and gather go for it, the gathering isn't a 'extreme' as for the yoke so it is less likely to end up looking a bit mangled like the yoke can.

Finish pinning the sleeves in.

As for when you joined the yoke and the dress you are joining concave and convex curve so you will need to use plenty of pins and be patient when you are both pinning and sewing.

Sew the sleeve into the sleeve into the dress...a few tips:

• Go slow.
• Sew with the 'hole' part of the sleeve facing up rather than trying to fit the base of your sewing machine inside the sleeve.  You get much better control and visibility this way.
• Make sure that you keep the both layers of fabric flat.  I had to unpick one of the sleeves on the yellow dress when I caught and extra layer into the seam for a few inches, doh!

Finish sleeve seam using either an overlocker/serger or with a line of zigzag stitching and pinking shears if you have them.

Repeat for the other sleeve.  If you are using buttons on the yoke you will need to finger press the eqivalent position of the shoulder seam because of the overlap.

Confession time.  I've made this 3 times but didn't add cuffs once.  It just seemed to hard the fact you potentially end up with a little raw edge turned me off.

You should try on the dress at this point (you can pull out those shoulder basting stitches now) to decide where you want the finished sleeves to sit on your arm.  Cut away any excess length.

To finish my sleeves I sewed a line of stitches 1/4" from the edge then used this as a guide for ironing the hem.  I then turned the hem up another 1/2" and pinned in place.

Repeat for the other sleeve.

Line the shoulder seams up and lay the sleeves on top of one another to ensure that they are the same length, adjust if neccesary.

Finish the hems by stitching.

For my own dress I bound the sleeves to keep them short.

Right now I have to head to the shops with the kids and we have a play date this afternoon so I'll write up the tutorial for binding the sleeves tonight.

Nice to be pushing publish again after not even getting a chance to log into my account for the last few days!

Tatum xx

Lisette Sew A Long - Joining the Yoke to the Dress

Time to get this dress really taking shape!

Today we will be joining the yoke and main dress panels then stitching up the side seams.

The first thing we need to to is sew the darts in the front of our dress.  Take your front dress panel and transfer the dart markings from the pattern piece to the wrong side of the fabric.  I used a ruler and lead pencil.

Pinch and fold the dart towards you and iron the folds in place.  Because one of the dart lines is on an inside corner they should be quite easy to fold and match.  Pin perpendicular to the dart line.  When you sew your darts you will need to sew from the outside towards the centre of the dress so you will need to be mindful of this when you pin the darts.

Sew the darts in place, tieing off the threads as described in your pattern instructions.  Iron down.

Next step is attaching the front panel to the yoke.

The pattern instructions talk about sewing a gathering stitch between notches on the front dress panel.  I did this for my first attempt and then unpicked it 3 times because I just could not get them even.  For my next two attempts I have hand pleated the gather in because it gave me more control.

Getting this little gathered part right is probably the trickiest part of dress construction because it is easy to get the gathers coming off at slightly skewiff angles which makes the dress sit funny on your boobs.  This step takes patience and some holding of tounge in the right way.

Take your yoke, mark the centre front with a pin or by ironing in the fold.  Flip the lining away and lay it in front of you, face up and with the head hole towards you.

Take your dress piece and mark the centre front.  Put the dress piece right side down on top of the yoke, matching the centre front marks and pin.

Next match the edges of the dress piece and yoke and pin.

Pin from the outside towards the centre aligning the edge of each piece.  You are pinning a convex and concave curve together so it will take some gentle manipulation to line them up.  Make sure you use plenty of pins and continue pinning flat until you reach the notch.

Repeat for the other side of the front yoke.

Now we need to add some gather or pleating into the front centre.  You will now have some excess fabric popping up on either side between the centre and the notch.  Add some even pleats into this area.  For my dress I added two on each side of the centre but for Lil's (which is only a size 6) I just added 1.

A couple of things to be mindful of when you are gathering the centre front.

• You want your pleats to 'point' towards the sides of the dress.  Turn your brain inside out a little while you are pinning to make sure that the pleats point in the right direction.  Practice first with some scrap fabric if you are unsure.
• Remember that you will be sewing a 5/8" seam so it is important that your gathers run as vertical as possible to prevent them being sewn in at funny angles.
• Did I say use LOTS of pins?
• If you are not happy with how it looks use your unpicker/seam ripper and have another go.  I unpicked my shirt 3 times and my dress once.  Just unpick between the notches.

Stitch your yoke and dress panel together.  Start from the centre and sew towards the edge, removing pins as you go, then repeat for the other side.  Iron the seam towards the yoke.  No need to trim but feel free to pink it if you want to make it 'bend' upwards more easily.

Sew a line 1/2" from the edge of the yoke lining.  Use this line to fold the edge under.

Pin the yoke lining flat and topstitch/edgestitch along the yoke front to secure the lining in place.  You may want to add a second row of edgestitching below the yoke on the front.  I didn't on my dress but did on my shirt and on Lil's dress.

Pin the back dress panel to the yoke, matching centre lines and pinning from the centre out.  The yoke and dress panel should match, there isn't any gathering required (yay!!)

As for the front sew from the centre out.  Iron up.

Repeat finishing process a for the front.  Sew 1/2" line on the lining, iron and fold up, pin and top stitch to finish.

Refer to yesterday's post on seam construction and decide how you are going to finish your seams.

Pin and sew.  Try it on to make sure you are happy with the fit before finishing the seams.

This is the exciting part because it really looks like a dress now!

Next step will be putting in the sleeves.

How are you going with your dress?

Tatum xx

Lisette Sew A Long - Seams

Bear with me here...I'm having some internet issues tonight and have been feeling unwell today with a razor blade throat and the sniffles.

Before we join the yoke and dress panels together I thought I'd talk a bit about seam construction.

After you have attached your dress panels you are going to want to sew up those side seams and try your dress on for size.  Given the slim fit of the dress there is a chance that you will want to play with your 5/8" seam allowance so I reccommend sewing the dress up at 1/2" for starters and using a longer stitch length than normal in cae you need to unpick.

If you want to take it in slightly then you can and if you want to give yourself a bit more room you can move your side seam out as far as 1/4".

Once you are happy with the placement of your side seams then you will need to decide on your seam construction.

If you have an overlocker/serger then this is the obvious way to finish your side seams.  I have one so that's how I finish mine.  Just don't jump in an serge that seam straight up just in case you want to let it out!

If you don't then you can run a zig zag stitch along the seam to finish.  This adds strength and prevents it from fraying too much.  If your seams are 5/8" then you could even use pinking shears to cut away the excess.

If you don't have an overlocker/serger and want to have a more finished seam than with the zig zag stitch your best option is to sew your seams flat.

Start by ironing the seam open (don't mind my horrible ironing board cover!).

Next fold the seam under.

Finish by edgestiching the seam in place on either side of the seam.  Once finished the seam will look like this on the outside with the raw edges concealed on the inside. 

I practiced this method on the sleeves of the dress I am making for Lil.  It is a bit harder to sew seams like this on the sleeves because you don't have much room to play with when feeding them through the machine.

French Seams are my favourite finish.  Sewing a french seam completely seals in the raw edges and gives and 'heirloom' finish.  You only want to sew french seams if you are absolutely sure that you want to sew the full 5/8" seam.

Start by sewing a scant* 1/4" seam with wrong sides of the dress together.  *scant 1/4" seam means that it is a little bit less than 1/4".

Once you have sewn the seams on either side turn the dress through with right sides together.  Iron the dress flat.  Sew the side seams again to encase the raw edge.  You will aim to sew a 3/8" seam to esure that you get all the raw edges. 

You can trim back the excess a bit before you sew the second time but you don't want to cut away too much incase the fabric pulls back through.

So, I know I'm running a day behind, but I will hope to post the next two steps tomorrow.  For now I need to take my sore throat and sniffly nose to bed!

How are you getting on with your dress yoke?

Tatum xx