Sun Frock Sew-Along Part 4

We're almost done! This week it's onto the Skirt, Pockets and the Finishing touches.

To Catch up:
Part 1 can be found here
Part 2 is here
and Part 3 is here

Firstly, lets get that skirt together! Sew up the 2 side seams  (and front center seam if you have one) and press open.

Now, grab your bodice from your Mannequin/Clothes hanger/pile in the corner and pin and sew it to your skirt, matching the sides seams as best you can. I did have to stretch my skirt a little to get it to fit my bodice, but my fabric has enough movement in it to allow that. If you cannot get your skirt to fit, you can trim a little from the top of it until it fits.

Grab your little neglected facing pieces, and iron on (or sew on) some light interfacing. I stupidly forgot to do this before overlocking around the pieces, so I have overlocked along 1 long side and 1 short side again (the sides that will be free)

Now pin your facing pieces, right sides together with the back 2 edges of your dress, leaving a 1/2" overhang at the top edge (which you will hand stitch down later) and sew straight down.

Turn your facing pieces to the inside of your dress and press.

Fold down the seam allowance at the top, in between the facing and bodice, and carefully hand stitch in place. Do this for both sides.

As for the button holes, the original instructions from the magazine call for bound button-holes. Now I have nothing against bound button-holes, but I personally just don't feel this garment needs them. As a summer dress I don't really want any extra layers of un-needed fabric, so I will be doing very basic zig-zagged button-holes with my sewing machine. Should you choose to do bound button-holes, head over to my friend Beccie's Blog, Sew Retro Rose, for a wonderful step-by-step tutorial. If you are doing bound button-holes, you may want to leave the hand stitching down of the top of the facing pieces until afterwards.

If like me you'd rather just have plain old machine buttonholes, go ahead and sew them as you usually would. But here's something I have to admit. I have not mastered (or even attempted) my machine's automatic buttonhole feature. Instead, I mark the length of my buttonholes and zig zag where I want them. You want your buttonholes to be as wide as your buttons (a little wider if they are particularly thick buttons) and I usually have my machine set at 3 for width and 0.2 for stitch length, but of course all machines are different, so find what works for you. I have marked my 4 buttonholes with a lead pencil, the first 35mm from the top edge, the next 3 after 56mm each, which makes the last one located 10mm from the waist seam (keeping in mind that I have shortened my bodice)

 I zig zag to one side of my marked line, lift my presser foot and pivot around, do a few straight stitches at the short end, going backwards and forwards a few times. then go back to the zig zag stitch and go down the other side of the marked line, going close to the other stitching, but making sure there is about 1-2mm in between so you dont cut any stitches when you cut open the buttonhole. Repeat the straight stitching at the other short end, tie off your threads and carefully cut through the middle of the buttonhole to open it.

Mark the button locations using the same spacing as the buttonholes, 1 inch in from the edge and sew in place. Sometimes, I am too lazy to hand sew on buttons, so by setting my zig zag stitch to a length of zero, and carefully placing the button in place underneath the presser foot and testing the width by turning the machine by hand, then sewing as many stitches as needed, I can just attach them quickly with my sewing machine. If you do use your machine, make sure your stitch width matches up with the holes in the button, otherwise you may break your button or even your needle. 

Now give those buttons a test run and ensure they line up nicely.

Now, with your buttons still done up, turn your dress inside out and lay flat. Line up the 2 back edges as evenly as possible.

Carefully lift up the edge near the bottom of the piece of facing, lifting the seam allowance of the piece underneath at the same time.

Pin the 2 pieces together in line with the stitching that attached the facing, 1/2" from the edge of the closest piece and sew together.

With right sides facing out, pin 1/2" from the bottom of where the facing pieces reach to. Run a short line of stitching across the width of the facing, then trim the excess fabric from the back seam if you wish to. I used my overlocker to do it.

Decide how many fasteners you want to use, and if you are going to use hooks and eyes or snap fasteners. I decided to do with 2 snap fasteners. I didn't measure to work out where I wanted them, just placed them where I thought looked right. I sewed them close to the open edge, and didn't make the stitches go through to the outer layer, just the facing and seam allowances

Now find your pocket and pocket trim pieces as well as the rest of your piping. I made a slight mistake in the cutting diagrams, which you may have picked up on if you looked at the original one from the magazine, although we are doing things slightly different from the original. Instead of just 2 of the pocket trim pieces, we were supposed to cut out 4. These are pretty small pieces, so hopefully you can squeeze 2 more out of your scraps, but if not, you can either use some other plain scrap from your stash (it wont be seen) or you can sew the trim piece directly onto the pocket piece. As I didn't want to topstitch along my piping, I chose to pull out my scraps and cut 2 more.

Start by sewing your piping along the edge of 2 of the pocket trim pieces, as you did for the bodice trim.

Then place the other pocket trim pieces on top and sew together.

Clip the curves, turn right side out and press.

Now lay each of your trim pieces over a pocket piece. Then put the pocket lining face down on top and pin. 

Sew around the pockets, leaving an opening at the bottom to turn them through. Clip the corners, turn the right side out, ensuring the trim is sitting on the side you wanted it to, and press.

Try your dress on, and while wearing it, pin your pockets on where you think they should go, then take it off carefully and lay out flat, matching skirt side seams and average out the positions of your pockets so they are both the same. Mine ended up being 4 inches down from the waist seam. Neatly topstitch into place.

Lastly, the hem! I know curved hems can be a pain, and I did initially want a much deeper hem, but I really liked the length my dress turned out to be, so I pressed a fairly narrow hem, and my fabric behaved perfectly! If your fabric has less movement or you want a deeper hem, you can ease the fullness in using a running stitch, or alternatively you could use bias binding to hem your skirt. My hem was top stitched in pink, the same as the pockets, trim and buttonholes.

I finished sewing my dress yesterday afternoon and wore it for the rest of the day. Today I am wearing it to church, and also to the CWA rooms where we will be serving tea, coffee and cake during the Postie Bike Grand Prix. It is a lovely comfy and lightweight dress that I will be getting a lot of wear from this summer, but I will be leaving the final completed reveal for the round up post.

So now the rest of you have until November 30th to finish your own versions of this Sun frock. I am trying to come up with a giveaway or prize or something for those seamstresses who are done in time, but I'm not making any promises yet.

Dixie

Sun Frock Sew-Along Part 3

Trim and Bodice Construction

In case you need to go back Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here

and now that it has been posted, Part 4 is here

Yay! We're finally up to the fun stuff!!!

To start off with we are going to encase our piping cord in our bias binding. If you are using lace, ready made piping or some other type of trim (or no trim) you can skip this step.

This can be a little tricky if your binding is narrow, but luckily, this stitching will be hidden later, so no pressure to get it neat and straight. Unwrap you binding from it's cardboard (which it already should be if you've prewashed it) and unfold the end with your fingers. You may wish to iron it flat at this point, but I don't bother

Place the piping cord in the middle, with a little bit overhanging the end.

Pinch the bias binding around the cord and hold the edges flat and pin.

You can just start sewing it at this point at arrange the binding around the cord as you go, or if you prefer you can go ahead and pin it all the way along. I like to sew across the piping cord an the end to anchor it, then sew down the length about 2-3mm from the piping so that the stitches will not be seen later. Once you get to the end, make sure the piping cord is sitting evenly within the bias and stitch across the cord to anchor it again. Now put this aside for later.

As is usual for most bodice construction, start by sewing the darts in the front and back pieces. I like to mark the point and the edges of the dart with tailors chalk, fold my fabric so the edge marks line up, put in a few pins and start from the edge and work in towards the point. Generally I sew my darts in a slight S shape, but you are free to do what works for you. Finish off the point nice and gradually, no you don't get the dreaded "nipple" of fabric at the end. I think the general rule for finishing the end of your dart is to not back stitch, but to run straight off, then to tie the treads together before you trim them. Beccie from Sew Retro Rose once mentioned she likes to use teeny tiny stitches for the last little bit of her dart for extra security, and I have been copying her ever since!

Once your darts are sewn, sew the side seams (seam allowance is 1/2 inch), and check the fit. This is best done with another person to help, but I generally hold the garment onto myself and check a mirror. Make sure there is plenty overlap in the back if you are using buttons, and make sure the bottom of the bodice hits at about your natural waist line (remembering seam allowance and that the weight of the skirt will pull it down a little bit) If you feel you need to shorten the bodice you can do so now, or if you need to take in the side seams a bit, or lower the underarm edge. If you do make changes to your side seams or underarm edge, make sure you copy these changes onto your trim pieces. Sew the side seams in your trim, then spend a bit of quality time with your iron and press all those darts and seams that you have sewn so far.

Now for the fiddly bits! Take your piping and pin it to the bottom edge of one of your trim pieces (I chose to sew it to the facing pieces first, but it doest really make any difference) You could at this point sandwich your piping between both sides of your trim and sew the lot together, but in an attempt to get it as neat as possible, I am sewing one side first, then sewing the other one on top. Your piping meeds to be pinned to the right side of the fabric, with the cord on the inside and the open edges of your bias just in from the edge of your fabric. Try to line it up so that you will be ending up with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Try you best to pin carefully around the scallops

Sew the piping on, just inside of the stitching line you already made on the piping. Lift your presser foot with your needle down to pivot and sew across your piping to anchor it down, then trim off the excess (which you will use on your pockets later)

Now you want to place the other side of your trim on top so the right sides are facing in. Turn this upside down, so the piece you just added is on the bottom and your previous stitching is visible, and pin.

Now you are going to stitch about 1-2mm in from your previous stitching line. As you stitch along on your sewing machine, you should be able to feel with your fingers where the piping cord is laying, and you want to stitch close to that, but not into into it.

Now clip along those scallop curves, making sure you don't cut through the second stitching line.

Turn your piece right side out and press. If you want to top stitch along the piped edge, now would be the time to do so. Then feel free to pin it on your mannequin with your bodice and admire your handiwork.

Now sew your shoulder straps down one side making them into tubes, turn right sides out and press.

Next up, sewing your trim to your bodice. The easiest way to do this would be to pin and sew your trim with it's right side against the WRONG side of your bodice, with your shoulder straps pinned in place between the trim and bodice. Clip the curves, turn the trim the the outside and press.

HOWEVER

I don't like raw edges if I can help it, so I will be sewing my trim on to conceal all the raw edges at the top. To start with, I have pinned the underside of my trim to the right side of the bodice and sewed it on.

Next up is where it gets a little tricky. you'll need to clip the underarm curve of all 3 layers (including the one you haven't sewn down yet) then with your iron, press the seam allowance of the bodice and underside of the trim down so that it will be between both layers of the trim.

Then, as neatly as you can, fold the seam allowance of the outer side of your trim into itself and press. 

Pin your shoulder straps into position, checking for fit as you do, and pin along the rest of the top edge. Carefully topstitch through the trim and seam allowances only, leaving the bodice and shoulder straps free.

Give the whole thing a nice press, then put back on your mannequin/clothes hanger/pile in the corner, ready for next week when we will be sewing on the skirt and pockets, plus all the finishing touches (such as the dreaded buttonholes)

(Ok, I confess, I did not press mine just now...)

Dixie

Part 1 of the Sew-Along can be found here

and

Part 2 can be found here