Pattern 1137 - the purple dress

First of all, thank you everyone for such an enthusiastic response to this new pattern. It was really fun to work on. 

Today I'm going to talk about some aspects of the purple dress.

I am lucky to have a terrific independently run fabric store a mile from my house that is so crammed with fabric you can hardly walk through the aisles ... really.  They had several shades of lavender silk dupioni and one of raw silk. They cut swatches for me and this is the photo I sent to Simplicity. They chose the darkest of the dupioni swatches, second from the right.

I'm not sure if this is in the pattern, but I flat lined (backed or interlined) the entire dress with broadcloth. I felt the silk was a little too light weight. This is something that can be done to pretty much any garment to add substance to the chosen fabric. And it actually doesn't make sense to put in the instructions because not all fabrics will need a flat lining.

In any case, it is REALLY important to make sure all the fabrics involved are pre-shrunk before cutting or sewing so these layers don't shrink at their own separate rates when washed or dry cleaned after the dress is finished leaving a bubbled and badly hanging garment.

Flat lining is nice, too, because the hemming can be slipped stitched into the flat lining only. Then no hem stitches at all will show from the outside.

This hem is slightly curve, so the fullness needs to be eased in before hemming. 

There was a request on my Facebook page to show how to add a train. This diagram shows where fabric should be added.  A train in most cases needs extra fabric added to the width of the back in addition to length.  After the dress is sewn together, the sweep of the train should be smoothed out during one of the fittings before hemming.

And, of course, the train can be made as long as you like.

To work on the roses for the neck, I first traced the scoop of the neck and sketched the size I thought the roses should be.

Then made some experimental roses. I wanted the roses to have a contrast interior, but after looking at these samples, realized I didn't want too much contrast and decided to make them all like the one in the center.

So, the pattern for each rose is like this. It is a standard bias cut spiral rose, but with about a third of it being the contrast fabric.

Fold the strip lengthwise and run a LONG machine gathering stitch on the cut edge.

Pull the stitched up ... not too tight.

As I worked I kept referring to my sketch and comparing my roses to make sure they were all about the same size.

I covered the back with a circle of fabric ... (but, if you could probably skip this stip. The roses are getting sewn to the dress anyway). 

Once the roses were figured out, I just had to make the rest.

It's important to get a nice tight coil to start.

Then I find a simple running stitch along the gathering stitches works best. This keeps all the bottom raw edges pointing downward so they won't accidentally fold up, peak though and be visible from the right side.

Before sewing to the dress, arrange the roses in the order they look best. No matter how hard you try, each rose will be a little different and the order they are placed will make a difference.

Here is my personal reference photo taken just before packing everything up for the trip to New York.


Feathers next week.