Dreaming of spring - Part 1

I have had a wonderful day...I spent the morning with my grandson and then after his mother left with him for a drs appointment, I sat and read the last 20 pages of a novel that I had been trying to finish up for a couple of days.

Around 1ish, I started working on the dress...yes, "Dreaming of Spring" is a variation on my TNT dress which was inspired by the Barrie Pace dress from two posts back. Of course, during the planning stages, I thought of something a little different than the inspiration dress, something a little more me. Also since I spent several days, dreaming about the dress, I ended up thinking through all of the construction steps.

So this afternoon I started with the piece that would be the most challenging to make...the center band. After going through several variations during the planning stages, I decided on a pleated band made from the floral silk georgette.

To accomplish the look I wanted, I cut the band 10" wide x 56" long. Then I placed marks 1" apart on either end of the band.

The pleats were pinned together and then sewn down 1/2" apart

Pressed flat

And finally pinned to a wool crepe piece cut in the same dimensions as the silk georgette piece and sewn together. I then serge finished the piece. The pleated piece is bigger than the circumference of the dress top and skirt because I wanted to make sure that I had enough. I'm also thinking of doing something special to the waistline finish...not sure if it will work because I have to put the entire dress together before I find out.


The other part of the dress that I worked on today was the dress skirt. My first issue was how to get the pieces out of the 1.5 yard piece of wool crepe that I had...yes, that yellow piece was a remnant...and caused me to work out some serious design inspiration to mask the fact that I needed just a little more fabric to cover my backside! *LOL*

The solution was to piece the back of the dress:

Once that was change was made...and I really liked the way it looked...it was time to add the silk organza underlining. See that's the problem with daydreaming a dress...you think through all of the possibilities... Since I have a few straight wool crepe skirts that are underlined with silk organza that wear like iron during my workday, I wanted to include this extra layer in this dress to make it as wrinkle proof.

I first learned about the silk organza tip on the now defunct Sewing World from Kathryn. There was also a tip shared on how to apply the silk organza to make sure that it was on-grain...of course I can't remember now who posted it. If someone does, could you please leave that info in the comments section!

However, I have refined the original tip. I now lay my fashion fabric piece on my cutting board and add the silk organza to the top of the piece. Then I pin it down. The original tip has you using alot of pins, and I mean ALOT. But I've found that if I put it on the board and pin in the strategic places, then baste the silk organza to the fashion fabric without removing it from the cutting board...I don't have any grain issues. Also my cutting board is not the same size as my cutting table so I can rotate it around as I'm basting the two pieces together...all of this helps to keep the pieces stable and on grain.

The lining was cut out next using the fabric pieces. My last sewing for the evening was to construct the lining and the skirt and then baste the two pieces together. Tomorrow I will work on the top and assembling the dress.

So more later!