The Building of a Dress - Part Two

First, I want to say that this was a totally encompassing experience that I don't want to repeat any time soon! *LOL* And then I want to say that I have another idea for this dress to make it out of linen using a ribbon for the trim at the neckline and the waistband...so yes, I am totally crazy! Here is a picture of the Chanel dress one more time on Cameron Diaz.

The back of this dress is almost a letdown in sewing details because the front has all of the details! The back only has a back neck yoke and waistband and on the next incarnation I will probably lose the back neck yoke. I guess I could have added some pleating detail to the back but felt like it was overkill.

And here is the dress on me:

A few more construction details...

1. Matching up the side seams with the waistband detailing was a major concern. I used a lot of pins and some hand-basting to make sure that the seam wouldn't move when I machine sewed it together.

2. I added the seam band to the sleeve, topstitched it and added a facing.

3. I inserted the lining (after cutting lining pieces from the finished dress pieces). I also added a lace hem to the bottom of the lining so that it would look like a slip.

4. A one inch hem was turned up on the dress and rayon seam binding was added to it. Then it was hand stitched down.

One thing about this dress is that I did a lot of topstitching on it. I didn't see this detail in the pictures but I liked it for my dress. I deliberately used a thread color that sunk into the fabric and a small stitch length because this was not a detail that I wanted standing out. However, I felt all the topstitching was necessary to keep all the parts in place.

I did omit the front pockets and the front seaming. The front pockets because they would just not be attractive on me and the seaming because I was more concerned with making sure that I got the pleating, yoke and waistband details to work...maybe in the next incarnation I will add the front seaming back ~ but definitely not the pockets!

Even though the details on the back of the dress were the simplest, it seemed like it took forever to finish the dress. Or maybe its just that I don't like finishing details! *smile*

And even though I have an idea for another dress like this in mind...this is what is really inspiring me next. I know I wrote about the pink & chocolate combination for a pantsuit and I even have the pants and top cut out but dresses just seem to be pushing my creative buttons right now.

This St. John dress is much simpler than the Chanel one and will probably be easier to complete. I am also using my TNT dress pattern to make this one too!

And if you want to see more pictures of the dress and the process they are available in my Yahoo photo album!

I think I am going to go read a book now!