Summer Spark Sew-along, finished!

I finished sewing together my Lonsdale dress on Friday, but haven't had time to blog about it until now. I've also been a little quieter than usual with the in-progress stuff, because my carpal tunnel has been acting up for the last couple of weeks--the worst flare-up I've had in years. So I've been having to be a lot more careful about time spent on the computer, as well as more or less completely taking a break from certain activities. Sadly, knitting is one of those, but they're starting to feel a little better. So I'm hoping that as long as I don't overdo it in the next few days, I can start doing that again soon. Anyway, here's the finished dress.

The front. I probably could have done a better job of matching the prints, had I had more fabric. As it was, I could barely squeeze all of the pieces onto what I had.















And the back, with its halter ties that I made in place of the bow in the back.

(p.s. dear boyfriend that I know likes to stalk this blog to see pictures of me....you should probably stop reading here, ok?)

Aside from the fitting, the most time-consuming part of this for me was putting the lining together, since I basically built a corset-of-sorts into it. So I thought I'd show some of that process, too. Rather than try to come up with the padding and shaping myself, I decided to cannibalize a bra that I already had. The underwires were still good, and the cups were in fairly decent shape, but it was just getting a little worn and to the point where it would be hard to wear under knit shirts without the edges showing some. This was about halfway through the process of sewing this in--I hand-stitched the facing seams over the cups to help hold them in place.

Once that was done and all of the boning was in, this is what it looked like. I basically tried the lining on while wearing the bra and pinned it into place to figure out where that should go, and also to mark where under the cups the boning should go. Aside from that bit, adding the boning in was pretty easy.

And this is what it looks like on the inside of the dress. I know it could probably lay flatter on the center front, but this was honestly the best I could work it with the underwires, after some time spent fiddling with it. I do think I did a pretty good job of re-lining the cups with the cotton sateen that I was using for the lining, though. (Incidentally, the same cotton sateen that I used to line the "In the Jungle" dress, which my mom gave me for free, and I still have some of it left! 

In retrospect, I probably should have allowed a little more ease in fitting to make up for the extra layer with the boning. Though it was better once I trimmed down the seam allowances in the waistband. The boning does seem to make the fabric protrude a bit funny right above the waistband, and I'm not sure why yet or how to fix it. But I think I can at least check this technique off. I did also attempt to do a blind hem on my machine, but it was NOT cooperating. The tension was all wonky on the hem stitches, and the thread marks were way too obvious. Which may have something to do with it being a print, but I'm not sure. And since this was June 29 and I wanted to get it done by the end of the month, I finally decided to just do a regular machine-stitched hem.

Overall, I liked the pace of this sewalong! And I feel good about actually meeting the objective, rather than scrambling to get 3 things done when I really only had time for one, like with the Colette Palette challenge. So now it's on to the next thing--more jeans-fitting, once I actually order that waxed tracing paper, and I'm starting to cut out a knit top. There may be a Thurlow trouser (or shorts) in my near future, too....

An hourglass in a pear-shaped world

 It took a little longer to fit the bodice of the Lonsdale than I'd anticipated, but I think I've got the kinks worked out now. I really wanted to take my time and do it right with this one, since the fact that I'm basically building a corset of sorts into it means that I need it to fit pretty closely. I also discovered that my phone is a pretty handy fitting tool in a pinch, thanks to the camera! (And much easier to take mirror shots with than my actual camera.)

So I did the FBA as directed in Tasia's Lonsdale sewalong, and it worked much, much better than my original attempt. But I still had a few things that needed work. Exhibit A: The back was doing this weird diamond-shaped wrinkle thing. I didn't take any pictures of the muslin once I'd fixed it, but here's what I ended up having to do:

That off-white bit sticking out at the side is the original muslin. I did have to take some of the slantiness out of the side to the left, where it joins the bodice. I also had to add 3/8" at the top, because once I did all of the other adjusting, they just didn't match up anymore. For the center back, I suspected that I needed something along the lines of a swayback adjustment, but I just couldn't find any instructions for how to do a swayback adjustment in a dress where it actually curved in well above the waistline seam. So, in typical fashion, I winged it and just curved the actual center back seam. It seemed to work pretty well, so I'm running with it and adjusted the pattern accordingly.

I ended up having to make some pretty major changes to the front, too. This picture was after redoing the front with a real FBA adjustment, and it fixed pretty much all of the unsafe-for-public-viewing issues. But there was still a bit too much bagginess in the front for a successful attempt at using the boning, as you can see. So after some fiddling with the front and side seams, I realized that the best solution would just be to add a couple more darts.

So that's what I did. Pretty different from the originally dart-less bodice, but I think that this will work much better for me. Makes sense, anyway....after all, this pattern was designed for women who are generally less top-heavy than me. Ahem.

But wow...the difference between the original pattern and what I ended up with is pretty crazy!

There ended up being a difference of about an inch between the original pattern width and what I ended up with after the FBA, but the dart that I needed to add in front ate most of that up. I still needed to add about 3/8" to either side of the waistband after pinning and fiddling with the pattern pieces to "walk" the length of the waistband. So then I added half of that to all of the side seams on the skirt, as best as I could estimate between 1/8" and 1/4" on my gridded ruler. I'm not too worried about fitting the skirt, since that's going to be much easier to adjust as I go.

I made three more adjustments to the pattern-- I shortened the ties so it will be an actual halter dress, I split the front bodice lining so that I had a facing of self-fabric for the top and ties (didn't have enough fabric to do a full self-fabric facing), and I'll be lining the skirt too. I did manage to get the dress entirely cut out last night. It's a good thing this isn't a one-way print, because it took some very creative pattern layout work to get this to fit! I did manage to squeeze it all on with only scraps left over, so one more piece entirely busted out of my stash, hurrah! Aside from figuring out the boning, I think it will be fairly quick to sew together. I actually went ahead and cut out the pattern with my pinking shears so the seams can just be pressed open and not otherwise finished. Since it will be fully lined anyway, it will still look nice, and that will save me some bulk at the seams. I'm rather excited to see how this comes together, and am hopeful again that I can get this all done in time for the Summer Spark Sew-Along!