FINISHED Miss! Wasn't too hard - but she doesn't need to know that does she?
I got another one last week , from a different client, but this one is even more interesting.
Take a black ( yucky sore eyes - hate sewing black) flamenco dress with the usual princess seams but this one has the panels right down to the floor and the frills (black georgette and 5 rows of them) are stitched onto this. Long georgette sleeves. So not the usual construction where you can just unstitch the skirt and all the frills - with me so far? She has bought some gorgeous embroidered lace and she would like me to attach the lace to the bodice and leave the skirt black. The fabric is one that doesn't crease or hold a seam line so this is what I'm doing : remove sleeves and top frill - I will fight the other frills in place - remove zipper and unpick one back panel. Thread mark all seam lines as I unpick so I can see where to re-stitch. Wrestle the thing onto the table and lay it out RS down onto WS lace . Pin securely. chop out the lace so I can manoeuvre it. Thread mark again attaching the lace to the bodice, then run a couple of tacking lines down through all the layers to keep it nice and flat. repeat for next panel. Baste panels together. Repeat for all panels. Now if you think in 3D you will realise that once sewn together the lace will be trapped into the seams - hooray - but the bottom edge of the lace will be on the outside as there is nowhere for it to go. I have a cunning plan and will replace the top black frill with a lace frill which will be attached to cover the raw edge of the bodice lace. Anyway, that's the plan - I may be some time.