I've realized that my photography skills are worse than mediocre. With the gray blah weather outside, I couldn't get any decent light. Well, you get the idea anyway.
I cut out the dress on Wednesday night. I didn't touch it again until Friday night, when I sewed the bodice front and back, lining front and back, and completed a facings. I then realized I didn't cut out the sleeves and lining. I hunted down the missing pattern pieces, cut 2 sleeves and linings and went to bed.
Saturday morning I finished the sleeves and the bodice and attached the skirt. After a bit of back and forth, I decided not to line the skirt. More out of laziness than anything. I turned a 2" hem stitched it into place. I also made a self fabric belt and a crinoline. The belt was made with a purchased buckle and belting.
Initially I was going to attach a slip/lining to the skirt and add a net ruffle to that. Since Ellen wasn't on location to give an opinion, I opted to make a separate crinoline. If Ellen didn't like it, she didn't have to wear it. A separate crinoline could be used with another dress or skirt as well.
I wanted to use cotton organdy but I didn't have enough yardage in my stash. Cotton organdy can be washed and dried and remain stiff and is more breathable than a synthetic. [NOTE - cotton crinoline fabric sold at fabric stores is usually dry clean only. If washed it looses it's stiffness] I did have a 4 yard piece of white synthetic organza. I also found a 50 yard spool of 7/8" wide black ribbon while rooting around. So the crinoline is made from black grosgrain ribbon and white nylon organza. The organza is less stiff but I was willing to give it a try since it didn't require another run to the store.
I read some basic instructions on this blog. A very good tutorial on making a petticoat. A disclaimer - I HATE to gather. Blech. I do it all the time but that doesn't mean I like to do it. After reading through the instructions, I realized that if I constructed the petticoat in reverse - top down rather than bottom up as instructed - I could use the gathering foot on my sewing machine and construct the petticoat without hand gathering. I also realized that the fray check step in the blog was unnecessary if the gathers and seam allowance were encased in the ribbon - there are no exposed edge to fray. And if I cut my strips with a rotary cutter, I can skip drawing cutting lines with a pencil and ruler.
First the math. I wanted a crinoline 21 inches long (waist to hem) plus 2 inches worth of seam allowances (4 seam allowances). 23 inches divided by 3 equals 7.67 inches which I rounded down to 7.5 as that's easier to cut. I used my rotary cutter and mat to cut organza strips 7.5" wide. On the Sugardale blog, it appears that she cut her strips lengthwise rather than across the grain to reduce seams. Either way will work, but I decided I'd rather use the rotary cutter and sew more seams than use a pencil to mark out 4 yard long cutting lines.
I sewed all the strips together with french seams [French seam tutorial for those needing more detailed instructions]. Using a french seam, there are no unfinished exposed edges to fray. I ended up with one massively long strip of organza. Listen to the voice of experience here - pay attention to which side is the "right side" and which is the "wrong side". You can't tell by looking and it doesn't matter which side you choose. But if you aren't consistent, you'll end up with seams on the inside AND the outside.
The true time saver here is a gathering foot for your sewing machine - not to be confused with a ruffler/pleater. This is sometimes referred to as a shirring foot.
Mine looks like the one in this photo... In theory, you can use this foot to gather one layer of fabric and attach it to a flat piece of fabric in one pass. The flat piece goes in the groove, the piece to be gathered (the ruffle piece) goes under the presser foot. In reality, I ran a couple of samples and couldn't keep my seam allowance straight on the flat piece, so I resorted to two pass construction. This is still significantly faster than running two lines of basting stiches, pulling up threads to gather to fit and then stitching.
I lengthened my stitch length to 6 (as long as I could) and ran the organza under the presser foot. Tada! Gathers! Honestly, it's like magic. The downside to this is I don't know exactly how many strips (how long) a piece of ruffled organza I'm going to need. This is highly variable based on the thickness/stiffness of the material gathered and the stitch length used. I had plenty of material so I wasn't going to worry about it. I cut about 3.5 yards of the organza into 7.5" strips and didn't end up needing them all. You could run a sample, measure, and determine the ratio of ungathered width to gathered width and calculate the exact number of strips needed. But that seemed like a lot of calculating for a project like this where I wasn't trying to get an exact measurement. I don't care what the bottom width of the petticoat is exactly. "As full as my gathering foot will make it" was a sufficiently exact width for me.
I put my regular sewing foot back on the machine and returned the stitch length to normal (in my case that's a 3). I cut a scrap piece of 1/4" ribbon to Ellen's waist measurement (in this case 24") to use as the waist stay. This will be covered later by the waistband finish. I then top stitched the pregathered organza ruffle to the ribbon, stitching through the thread line on the organza as a guide . When I reached the end of the ribbon, I cut the organza ruffle to fit. The first tier is now attached to the waist stay (ribbon cut to waist measurement).
Now I attached a second row of ruffle to the bottom edge of the first tier WRONG SIDES TOGETHER. The seam allowances will be on the right side of the garment. Stitch all the way to the end and cut the pregathered ruffle to fit. I then topstitched a length of 7/8" ribbon flat over the seam allowances to encase them and prevent them from raveling. This also gives more structure to the crinoline. There are excellent photos of this on Sugardale's blog. Make sure you have both seam allowances under the ribbon.
This process was repeated again for the last (third) tier. Ruffle attached. Seam allowances covered and another piece of topstitched ribbon. If you run out of organza ruffle, don't freak out. Don't stitch all the way to the bitter end of the pregathered strip- leave 3-4 inches unsewn and set it aside. Cut more strips, seam them together, run the strip under the gathering foot to make more ruffle. Pick up your project and use a french seam to attach this new extension to the free end of the ruffle, then continue sewing. Top stich another row of ribbon to cover the seam allowance between the middle and bottom tier.
What you end up with is some that looks more like an apron than a skirt. The side seam is open. Use a french seam to sew the side seam together from the top edge of the first ribbon band down to the bottom/hem edge of the crinoline - the top tier is left open (no side seam) to form a placket to allow the crinoline to be taken on and off. Finish the edge of the top tier with ribbon folded around the edge [another useful photo from Sugardale] and topstiched. Finish the waistband and add hook and eyes as instructed on Sugardale's blog.
I realize photos of my modifications would be very useful. I didn't take any as I went since I had about 90 minutes to get this made. But I'll try to mock up some samples and get pictures added as soon as I can. Here's a picture of the my adaptation of the "Go for Brocade" dress with the crinoline underneath. As you can see, the skirt is 'poofed' out but not crazy poofy. I don't think the organza is quite stiff enough to support the heavy brocade of the dress. It would add much more fullness to a dress made from lighter material. Ellen was undecided initially about the crinoline and wore the dress without it. Hopefully it'll get used another time.
