So, I fitted the pleats dress around the bust. Not really the right style for my shape or a colour I like but it's well made and I finished it.
I made my second habit jacket toile this am and felt so accomplished (even with the collar failure) that I decided to tackle the chiffon dress.
I dug out a brand new pinking blade for my rotary cutter and swept it through thn royal blue cotton and it was fine. Sometimes they are a bit blunt and useless, but this one is sharp! Then I laid out my chiffon and floffed the pattern on it and rotary bladed away. All reasonably accurate.
Started sewing the shoulders and adding interfacing to the yokes. Took me a while to work out which bits to sew together on each set.
Then time to sew the chiffon! I had a nice lot of thin Swedish tracing paper offcuts that I treated as tearaway to sit between fabric and feed dogs. French seams thought I as I sewed. Then realised I'd started the wrong way round. Didn't bother unpicking but did a french seam on top so it was a sort of double french seam on that side! Attached part one of the yoke. Inserted invisible zip (I thought I had bought a YKK but turned out to be some random zip which wasn't as good and couldn't sew ar close, possibly because chiffon but also the zip was quite fat on the RS. Anyway zip went in no problems.
I read somewhere about french seaming up to an invesible zip but was going from memory so made a bit of a mess at the zip tail. Will attempt to fix later in the week when I can find the guide.
Then came attaching the shoulder straps to the yoke and then the facing. Went well, like the shoulders, the bit around the zip needs cutting and hand sewing to finish. And the facing and yoke both need turning up at the 'waist' seam and hand stitching to finish. I did the hem, very very badly it seems as the chiffon refuses to stay in place and it keeps flopping under (double fold hem) any fixes appreciated. Also I forgot the paper to act as tearaway and it sewed beautifully without snagging on the feed dogs at all. So not finished yet, but almost. Hopefully it will be by the end of the week.
Tried it on and I don't really need a zip, whilst the pockets and pleats dress would definitely be better with one!
Also it seems that the chiffon is even more see through than I thought possible. I've taken a poor photo of it on a bed as I can't get it to stay up on a hanger. I did take some with me wearing it but it ir very very see through - I think I'll need a slip or chemise! I have cropped a photo so that I look half decent and you can't see my pants!
I do like the yoke and shoulder design, but I don't think it needs so much interfacing, shough it may soften after a wash...
I also have quite a lot of chiffon left over...
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