Dress in Progress

Hi, it's Liana. Recently I've been working on a formal dress for 4-H.  I have been learning many new skills in the process of making the dress. I used a serger to finish the edges of the pieces. It was my first time using the serger. It has a big razor blade on it close to the needle which chops off any fabric that comes its way. You need to make sure that you don't let too much fabric get chopped off or else  your fabric piece will be too small. I've had quite a time using the slippery fabric so the teachers suggested doing tension stitching. It helped a lot with the puckering in the fabric. The pattern is a Butterick pattern.This year is my first year making a Butterick pattern. The company Butterick has lots of formal wear patterns. There are even wedding dress patterns. In the future I hope to design my own patterns.  At 4-H there are some girls designing prom dresses! It's amazing to see what they can design. When I get older I would like to teach sewing to my children. 

McCalls Pattern 5033

After all the alterations and adjustments, the dress I made Liana to test out the pattern is complete. It will be a fun dress for her to wear this summer. Besides fitting, the only problem I had with this is the hem. It is a huge circle hem and I cut it out long to determine the length we wanted for the junior bridesmaid dress. But cutting it down for a casual dress was difficult.

Liana is so tiny for her age that standard patterns just don't fit her. I would not attempt to make the bridesmaid dress with good fabric unless I worked out all the issues in a cotton version first. She loves the cheerful, floral print.

Cynthia Rowley Simplicity Pattern 2250

In 4-H this year I am making this Cynthia Rowley dress.

When I first picked out this pattern I thought it wouldn't be that hard. HA!  I was SO wrong!  This is an A-line dress.  The bodice part of the dress is made of TONS of darts and pleats. (AAAHHH!)  In the back, the dress has elastic, an invisible zipper, and a tie.  The dress also has pockets.  I think one of the hardest parts of this dress was the skirt part.  Well, it wasn't that hard, just very confusing.  Usually, if dresses have gathers they are all the way around without stopping.  The skirt part in this dress is not evenly gathered.  There are pleats in some places and gathers others.  Weird right?  With much difficulty, I managed to finish my muslin dress.  I made the muslin dress mostly for fit.  Even though the dress was hard, it looks really cute!  Unfortunately, the fabric that I used for my muslin dress does not show off the darts.  The darts and pleats in the dress just blend in with the fabric.  For my "good" dress,

I picked out a fabric that shows the details better. 

♥ Arielle ♥

Dress - View A

bodice with pleats and darts

Full view of bodice with pleats and darts

Fabric for my "good" dress (the dark purple is the contrasting)