Summer Swan Song Part 2: The Coral Linen Shift That Wanted to Become a Sheath

I wanted to make a simple summer shift dress from a beautiful pink and orange crossdyed linen that has been marinating in my stash for years. I chose a Vogue pattern and figured to have the dress made up in a day. (Filed under the Best Laid Plans category)

I figured the bias linen would just follow my curves and fit nicely, the way that many of my bias dresses do. But this linen had a mind of its own. It fit me like a potato sack. So I stitched darts in the front bodice and the back waist areas. Everything was going fine until one of the two back darts decided to act up. No matter how many times I sewed and re-sewed it, the top and bottom points of the dart pointed out away from my body, by about 1/4 inch. They looked like tiny dinosaur back spikes.

The bizarre thing was that the three other darts went in beautifully. In fact, the other back dart, identical in shape, looked just fine.

I followed Sandra Betzina's instructions and added small circles of silk organza at the dart points, but that did no good. Then I posted a topic on Stitcher's Guild asking for advice and tips on how to solve this problem. I got several good answers, but alas none of them worked.

I put the dress in Time Out while I did some sewing for my DD. Then one day I got the linen dress back out, took out the dart one more time, pressed the entire dress and put it back on my dressform to rest. A few hours later I restitched the back dart into place and it looked just fine! When I put the dress on myself, there were no little pointy-out ends on any of the darts. Yay!

So either the dress decided to behave itself after sitting in the Time Out corner or the dart removal followed by pressing and hanging righted whatever wonky thing was going on with the fabric in that particular area of the dress.

I could be wrong about this, but adding darts to this dress officially transformed it from a shift dress to a sheath. I think shift dresses are dartless and hang from the shoulders, and sheaths are darted and can sometimes hang from the shoulders.

The dress is lined with coral stretch silk charmeuse cut on the straight of grain, since it was a stretch woven.

When the dress was finished, it looked pretty blah. So I gussied it up with some pinked-edge self-fabric flowers secured with an iridescent pink/orange bead.

Dress Photos:

And here is a closeup of the crossdyed linen that I used:

Pattern Used:

Vogue 1180

Pattern photos:Line Drawing:

Materials:

Fabrics:

Dress: Pink/orange crossdyed linen from stash, pretreated by pressing, then washing and drying before pressing again.

Deep coral stretch silk charmeuse from stash
Pink/orange iridescent glass beads for the flower centers
Thread:

TIRES 100% silk thread (monofilament) in sewing machine

MaxiLock 100% polyester thread in serger

Machine Needles:

Size 80 Universal
Machines:

Janome 6600 computerized sewing machine

Elna Pro 905 DCX computerized serger

Things I did with this project (that weren't in the pattern instructions):

1. Added darts.
2. Eliminated the back diagonal seam, as it was perfectly straight and added no shaping whatsoever. I'm sort of puzzled as to why it is there, perhaps as a design detail or to allow the dress to be made from narrower fabric.
3. Added fabric flower embellishments. I just cut out strips of fabric with my pinking shears and gathered one long edge, shaping the flower as I gathered. I secured the flower in place with a matching glass beads.

Things I learned, or was reminded of in this project:

1. Don't put darts in a bias dress.
2. Don't use the "burrito method" (this link is to an excellent pictorial tutorial on the method by one of my favorite online sewists, The Sewing Lawyer) for stitching the armholes for a bias cut dress with narrow shoulder seams. It puts way too much stress on the bias to pull it through the narrow shoulder opening. I have used this method many times with sheaths. But I will never use it again with a bias sheath. Perhaps it was the cause of my dart insertion problem. Who knows.

Things I would do differently, were I to make this dress again:
Hmmm. That's a puzzler, because if I ever make this dress again, I would still want it shaped with darts. Unless, of course, the fabric's bias was more giving, as in some of my silk chiffon bias cut sundresses and skirts.

I have no plans to make it again, though.

Purple Knit Dress with a Red Rose Applique


I had seen an article in the Fall 2009 issue of Sew Stylish (Taunton Press) regarding the embellishment of a simple t-shirt dress. I thought the dress was cute, and that my daughter would like a version of it.




However, I disliked the fact that the design was painted onto the dress using fabric paint with edges of the petals hand-embellished with a cotton floss chain stitch. I thought it would be much prettier and more sophisticated if the design was appliqued on.

Secondly, I disliked the size of the rose design with respect to the proportion of the dress as shown in the article. I thought it overwhelmed the dress.

So I made a simple knit sheath dress from my favorite structured knit, Sophia, (an RPL doubleknit) and appliqued the design, omitting the outermost layer of petals to bring the size of the rose more into proportion with the dress. The applique was also of the Sophia structured knit.

This is how my version turned out:

Front view:
Front neck closeup:


Lower skirt closeup:


Applique extreme closeup:


Back view:


Lining view:

Lining hem area:

Pattern Used:

Kwik Sew 3463

Pattern photo:

Materials:

Fabrics:

Purple Sophia RPL doubleknit from House of Fabrics, North Asheville, NC.
Ruby red Sophia RPL doubleknit from same place.
Ruby red stretch silk charmeuse from my stash.



Thread:
Mettler 100% polyester used for dress construction
Mettler Poly Sheen 100% polyester used to applique the rose petals into place.

MaxiLock 100% polyester thread in serger

Machine Needles:
Size 80 Universal


Machines:
Janome 6600 computerized sewing machine

Elna Pro 905 DCX computerized serger





Things I did with this project (that weren't in the pattern instructions):


1. Made the dress more fitted.

I wanted the dress to be more of a fitted sheath than a loosely fitting t-shirt dress, so I altered the pattern extensively to make it fit my daughter.

2. Inserted an invisible zipper into the center back.

Altering the pattern required that I shape the center back seam. Since it could no longer be cut on the fold as directed by the pattern, I inserted an invisible zipper.

I also thought that there would be less stress on the stitching holding the appliqued rose in place if the dress could be zipped on instead of being pulled on over the head.

3. Elongated the dress to mid-knee length.

4. Inserted a silk lining.

A silk charmeuse lining is one of life's small luxuries. Plus it hides the applique stitching on the inside of the dress.

5. Embellished the dress with a stylized rose.

That was the whole point of wanting to do this project. I wanted to see how a knit appliqued onto another knit worked out.

Things I learned, or was reminded of in this project:


The major learning curve portion of this dress involved appliqueing the rose petals into place. I had never appliqued a knit fabric onto another knit. As usual, I danced around the project a lot, researching knit applique methods. The best info was found in Connie Long's wonderful Taunton Press book, Sewing with Knits. I could not use her exact method, as she describes color blocking, but I did glean info about stitch type and length. She also has a published article on the method in Threads #142 April/May 2009.

This is how I did it.

1. I scanned the rose design from the magazine and enlarged it to 100%.
   
2. I traced the design onto a square of the red knit which I had basted into place in the lower left quadrant of the dress. I had only stitched the dress's left side seam at that point so I had the least amount of fabric to deal with. The rose design wraps slightly onto the back of the dress.
   
   I traced over the tissue paper design twice, first with a hera marker and then with a mechanical pencil with the lead retracted. I used wax-free tracing paper between the tissue paper and the red fabric. The result was a very light white line pattern. I knew I'd never be able to see those faint marks when I sewed. Plus I thought some of them would rub off. So I cut out each tissue paper petal individually re-marked its position as described in Step 3 below.
   
   BTW, as I said above, I did not use the outermost layer of petals because the design was too large with it included. I fiddled with minimizing the design to include the outermost layer, but the applique shapes would have been really small had I done that. Some of the shapes were only an inch long as it was.
   
   
3. I started with the innermost layer, consisting of two small petals. I cut out their shape from my tissue paper tracing and attached them to the fabric and traced a dot pattern around them using a white pencil. Then I followed those dots on my sewing machine. I did the subsequent layers of petals in a similar manner. For each petal, I did the dot re-marking just before sewing it so the marks wouldn't brush off.
   
   Here are photos of the 3rd layer of petals:
   
   
   
4. To sew the white dotted design, I used the integrated dual feed option, called Accu-Feed, on my Janome 6600. I slowed the stitching speed way down and used a 2.2 stitch length setting. I also used the single hole needle plate. I stitched carefully, trying to follow the markings as closely as possible.
   
   I started with the innermost layer of petals, marking with the dots, and then sewing. Then I would lay down the next layer of petal tissue shapes and white-dot around them. Then I would stitch those petals into place, etc.
   
   Here's what my sewing machine saw:
   
   
5. Once the stitching was completed, I used a small sharp pair of embroidery scissors to trim away the fabric from the stitched petal shapes. I trimmed as close as I could get to the stitching. I tried to use my applique scissors to trim the shapes, but they were too large. Some of the spaces between the petals were tiny.
   
   
6. When the trimming was finished, I pressed the design carefully from the wrong side.
   
   

I have to say I loved how nicely it turned out! I was excited to have learned a new sewing technique. I think a great deal of the success had to do with the fact that Sophia knits are so easy to sew with. A less stable knit, especially one with lycra in it as Sophia has, would not do as well, I don't think.




Things I would do differently, were I to make this dress again:

I don't think I would change a thing about this dress. My only regret is that I have to give it away to my daughter (says me, selfishly!). It was such a satisfying project to have completed that I think I'd like to try this method on a dress for myself sometime in the future.

Lemongrass Yellow-Trimmed Grey Sheath and Shrug

Inspiration for the dress: A Crimes and Misdemeanors design seen in a Nordstrom ad in Harper's Bazaar magazine:

Dress and Shrug-style Jacket Photos:

Patterns used:

Dress: McCalls 9295

Shrug style jacket from pattern #101, Burda World of Fashion December 2008:


Materials:

Grey RPL (rayon, polyester, lycra) medium weight knit from House of Fabrics, North Asheville, North Carolina

Lemongrass yellow ultrasuede from stash

Mettler 100% polyester thread

MaxiLock serger thread



Things I did with this project (that weren't in the pattern instructions):

1. Pretreated the RPL knit by heavily steaming with a gravity feed iron.
   
   
2. Self-faced the dress bodice area, front and back, to the high waist.
   
   
3. Reinforced the horizontal bodice seam in this stretch strapless dress by basting clear elastic by machine, using a small zig-zag stitch just inside the seamline. The teflon presser foot was used for this step.. Then attached the bodice facing with the same small zig zag stitch and trimmed the seams to 1/8 inch with a three thread serger stitch.
   
   
4. All seams on the dress (except the horizontal bodice seam) were sewn with a 3 thread serger stitch.
   
   
5. Added ultrasuede straps, upper bodice trim, and hem trim. Adhered the ultrasuede to the garment with two strips of 1/4 inch Steam a Seam Lite at each long edge and then topstitched it into place using the teflon presser foot.
   
   
6. All seams on the bolero jacket were sewn conventionally with 5/8 inch seam allowances. The seams were sewn with a very slight zig zag stitch, and the the seam allowance edges serged just to look nice, since the knit does not ravel.
   
   
7. Reinforced the shoulder area only of the jacket with clear elastic.
   
   
8. Except for the facings, the dress and jacket are unlined. The dress has no zipper or closure. It just slips on.
   
   

Things I learned (or was reminded of) in this project:

1. Ultrasuede has slightly more stretch on the crosswise grain than it does on the bias. The only reason to cut it on the bias for trim is if a longer length of trim is needed than the crosswise width provides.
   
   
2. It's possible to almost (but not quite) invisibly hem this RPL knit by hand by using a very small (size 10) needle and picking only one or two threads per hemstitch from the body of the garment. The stitches may not show; however a very faint ridge may mark the edge of the facing through the right side of this knit, even though it is of moderate thickness.
   
   
3. Removing a spot on the RPL knit by rubbing it with a cloth and clear water raises a bit of a nap. The rubbed area will be obvious. I don't know whether this would have happened had I prewashed the RPL. Since I plan on dry cleaning the garment, I did not prewash, just pretreated with steam. Fortunately it happened before I cut out the garment, so I just avoided the spot when placing the pattern pieces.

Things I would do differently were I to repeat this project:

1. Prewash the RPL in the washer and dry on low even if the garment is to be dry cleaned thoroughout its lifetime.
   
   
2. Attempt to cut the strap as one L-shaped piece for the front and one for the back, (two pieces per side), seaming at the shoulders and sides, instead of using the 1 1/2 inch wide straps, seamed at the front and back bodice.