Helena Part Two
The tulle hits the satin.
With the front looking much better, I moved on to lining the bodice which I lined separately from the skirt so that I would have a seam at the waistline into which I could slip the seam allowances of the foundation, lining and coutil. To prepare the bodice lining, I closed the darts, staystitched along the sides and ran easing stitches along the top before pressing in the side and top seam allowances.
I then pinned it in place and stitched it to the bodice by hand; first with a slip stitch around the edge and then a backstitch just inside the edge to act as an understitch. I decided to apply the lining by hand rather than bagging out the bodice so that I would have more control over the shape at the corners and wouldn't have to force it right way out with the stiffness of the coutil in there as well.
View from inside of the bodice. I am unabashedly proud of how pretty this looks.
Front done and pinned to mannequin. It’s lookin’ kinda how I want it to!!!
Having gone as far as I could with the front, it seemed like a good time to start into the back.
The first steps with the back were all to do with stabilizing. After basting along my seamlines, I staystitched the underside of the strap on the right side, fused a strip of light interfacing along the zipper opening and, of course, applied more tailor tape along the top edges to create a clean line and make sure they curved into the body. Time to put in an invisible zipper on a curve.
yaaaaay...
It looks better with her little bum filing it out…
I'm exaggerating. It's not that bad. It went fine.
Once the zipper was in, rather than stitching the centre back seam, as one normally would, I opted to just baste it with a bit of tape to keep it from stretching out as I finished the rest of the dress.
Honestly, patting myself pretty hard on the back for this little bit of foresight.
At this point, I had not yet decided exactly how the sash would be finished at the centre back where it joined the train. Would it be sewn into the seam or would the piece be long enough to simply extend into the train? I wasn't going to figure this out until I got around to draping the sash, so for the time time being I just basted the seam to leave my options open. The lining could be stitched though, so I closed the centre back lining and stitched it by hand to the dress along the top edges and around the zipper.
Finally, the front and back could be joined together into one garment! First, I stitched the side seams of the skirt in the satin, making sure to stop exactly at the waistline. Next, I stitched the backs to the foundation at the sides, once again stopping at the waist so that the foundation seam allowance could be clipped to slip into the seam at the waist of the front lining.
Before actually sewing in the front skirt lining, I pinned and stitched my three front bodice layers together along the waistline. At last I could complete the lining; I stitched the front skirt lining to the backs at the sides and closed it by hand along the waistline. I could also now close the lining along the side seams and underarm as well as finish the strap.
At this point, the strap was looking like it wanted to sit a little more off the shoulder than I had been intending and I decided I didn’t mind and could go with it. I started draping the sash with this in mind (I even made a little shoulder piece for the mannequin) and then somewhere along the way, with the sash fully stitched on, it migrated back up into the position I had originally intended. Go figure. I think on its own, the strap just wanted to sag a bit and once the tulle was there it added some stiffness which held the strap up.
When applying the sash, my first thought was to cut the strips along the cross grain, thinking that the stretch would help it to go smoothly around the body, and I wasn't entirely wrong about that, but it ultimately proved to be too bouncy and unwilling to pleat into the shape I wanted.
Too bouncy! A shame because I kinda preferred the colour gradient going in this direction.
I switched to cutting on the lengthwise grain which went much better; the tulle was happy to squish down onto the strap and then spread out to the width I wanted for the sash.
This switch also helped make the necessary break in the sash at the centre back look as seamless as possible. I mean, there's clearly a seam, but it looks pretty good.
I achieved this by folding the green and silver strips lengthwise separately, then stitching them together along the fold with a small running stitch which I then used to gather them to the size I wanted. The sash is made out of two strips, each starting at the centre back on either side of the zipper, and wrapping around the body to the centre back again. The pieces are sewn on entirely by hand, with many pins and tiny adjustments to the folds along the way. I strove to make sure I was only catching the satin layer and that I was not pulling the tulle too tight around the dress, particularly on the skirt.
As I worked on the sash, I decided that I would stitch the end of the lower piece into the centre back seam. The piece wasn't long enough to go any further and having discovered an attractive way to gather and finish on either side of the zipper I knew I could make a separate train and sew it on top of the finished seam and make it look good. With the sash sewn to the dress, I finally stitched the centre back seam, catching in the tulle.
With the centre back seam finally stitched, at last I could finish the hem! I chose to use a faced hem for the satin and a bridal hem for the lining.
A faced hem wasn't strictly necessary as I had plenty of hem allowance, but I personally like the look of faced hems as I find the seam along the hemline makes a really nice clean edge, which also happened to be appropriate for this design. It also meant that I could extend and reshape the train a little bit without worrying about how much hem allowance I had left.
The final step was to finally make and attach the tulle train. For the train, I still used two layers folded in the centre, but rather than folding the layers individually before putting them together, I laid one colour over the other and folded them down the centre as one. I used a big stitch in white basting thread to hold the two layers together and establish my fold line before running a much smaller gathering stitch.
Attaching the train went much like the sash. I gathered and pinned it into place before stitching it to the satin layer. Once it was on the dress, I shaped the train by stitching two layers to the back seam and trimming the whole thing into an attractive shape that I hope looks somewhat intentional.
After having been inspired initially by the sash, the part of this dress which I really enjoyed was the structure underneath. It would be fun to make her again without the sash and possibly using a lace or some kind of embellished fabric for the foundation and back. Hmmm. Overall, I’m happy with her. As I look at the completed dress, I do wish I had raised the mannequin a little on her stand to lengthen the skirt as she looks rather shorter than my drawing. I also wish I had altered the left side of the foundation too, the seam where it joins the back is more visible than I realized it would be. Oh well, hindsight and all that.
Helena took 55.5 hours in total. I spent 17.5 hours drafting, making mock ups and working out the pattern and 38 hours building the final dress.
