Flowery Dress - the making of (Part 2)

Only after finishing the bodice did I realise that the design flaw that I thought would be a design flaw was indeed a design flaw.

Oh well. I sort of fixed it. Although in doing so it meant the rest didn't work.

Read and enjoy!

Making the ties for the lace-up back

It took SO long to turn these the right way out!

Pinning down the back of the bodice to make the gap for the lace-up part

Pinning the ties in place - this bit was quite awkward!

Checking it looks ok with the outer piece of fabric in place!

I think they look pretty cool...

Here I was trying to pin it so that it was sew-able...

Sewing the holes on. This was quite tricky and involved sewing a bit, removing a pin, attempting to hold in place, then sewing a bit more, and so on!

After sewing the holes on, I tidied up the inside by folding in the material and sewing to make a neat seam. (As you can see I used several rows of stitching to make the loop holes secure enough to pull on.)

All neat and tidy

Doing side number 2.

As it will look when sewn

Once I'd done the loop holes for both sides, I sewed the centre parts together to join the bodice up, and tidied up the edges by folding them inwards as before. There's probably a better way of doing this but it was the easiest thing I could think of!

So that is the inside I'm sewing there...

The bodice completed. All ready and waiting for the skirt.

Next, sewing the skirt pieces together. Did this with a mini hem - where you fold over the raw edges and sew, then fold over again and sew, et voila, a tidy, tiny hem.

I wanted the bodice to be longer at the back so here's the fold where I'm going to sew on the skirt.

I changed my mind about how I was going to hem the bit under the belt, which called for an emergency hem. Looks fine though, and of course you can't see it under the belt!

So, the issue with the bodice as mentioned at the start was that, when the belt gathered the dress at the back, the bottom of the lace-up part sort of stuck out. I realised this a bit too late, but not much I could do by then... I decided to fix it by pulling in the bodice to make it somewhat fitted, rather than being a loose design that was gathered at the back. This sort of worked, but makes the dress look rather frumpy and needs serious fixing really!

Pulling in the sides to attempt to make the bodice fitted!

Gathering the skirt. I later realised that for a better swing skirt, you shouldn't use a rectangle but instead a quarter circle for each part of the skirt... never mind!

At 20 or so photos, I think it's time to make this into another separate post... see you there!