Finishing my May Project - Simplicity #1611

Oh, I think this dress is going to be worn a lot this summer! 

AND it was pretty quick to make. After so much handing sewing for my somewhat insane quilt project, I am going sew this entire dress by machine.

Click on this to read about cutting the dress out.

Sometimes you know a dress was meant to be ... I had, in my zipper box, the perfect color of invisible zipper!  


A good metal invisible zipper foot seems expensive, but they are SO much better than the cheap blue plastic kind.  Do they even still sell the blue plastic kind?

The seam with the zipper looks like it's just the design of the fabric ... cool.

I assembled the pieces and tried it on.  Perfect! ... so lucky this time. Well, it's not supposed to be very fitted.

The pattern has a piece to cut bias for the neck and armhole. There is a 1/4" seam allowance around the neck and armhole, but I don't want these openings to get any larger.  I don't want my bra straps to show and I don't want the armhole any lower, so instead of pressing the bias to the inside of the neck and armhole like a facing, I'm going to wrap the bias around these edges which will make a nice finished edge.

BUT ... ha ha ... I was able to easily pull the dress off without unzipping the zipper, so why have it?  It makes the back seam really stiff. So, away with it ... I just picked it out and sewed up the back with a regular seam.

Wished I would have know that BEFORE I put in the zipper. Oh well.

Anyway, back to the bias finish on the neck and armhole edge ... 

To make a 1/4" edge I cut the bias 1 1/4" wide. A wrap around edge like that usually needs four times the finished width, but since I'm making this dress all with machine sewing, I want to "stitch in the ditch" and a little extra is needed to do that.

After the bias is sewn on with a 1/4" seam I wrap it around the edge, folding it in the back and pin it in preparation for machine stitching.

This is what the back looks like.

I'm stitching right smack in the middle of the seam (aka "the ditch"), pulling the pins just before I reach them.

This is what it looks like from the outside ...

and the inside.

I'm also going to hem this dress by machine. If you don't know how to use the blind hemming feature on your sewing machine ... check out the Youtube video at the bottom of my blog.

This is what it looks like from the inside.

And outside, not bad. And, it looks even better in the sections of fabric that match the thread better.


DONE!