Hi All!
At last i am finally sharing with you all my latest make for the Sew Crafty Shop! I made this way back in July and for some reason never hit the publish button till now!!! Durrrr!!
I originally planned an hack on the Orsola Dress byhandlondon but unfortunately my fabric was just wasn’t wide enough for the skirt and didn’t feel confident enough to pull off a pencil skirt.
So after wrecking my brains and on instagram, i decided to go with a Tried and tested Deer and Doe Belladone with the beautiful cut out back version.
The Fabric is a beautiful stretch cotton with large Pink Peonies adorning it and its the most comfortable material to work with even though i decided to keep it safe and use fine dressmaking pins.
I made my usual adjustment of taking in the back pieces in by 1/2″ so that the back lays flat rather than sticking out.
Even though the pattern states to use bias binding and for it to be on show… i personally ain’t a fan of it and decided to hide my binding to the inside and topstitch down so it didn’t interfere with the clean look of the dress.
A little tip for matching your waistband when installing your zip! I like to baste my zip by hand 1st as i find that a lot easier that way to keep the zip in place.
Once you have sewn in one side of your zip, zip up your zipper to the top.
Place a horizontal pin in the unstitched side of the zipper tape, perfectly aligned with the waistline on the stitched side.
Now unzip your zipper (keeping the horizontal pins in place!), flip the loose tape over ready to be pinned into place down the other side of your dress. Use the two horizontal pins to dictate where the zipper should be placed – pin the tape so that the top pin is be flush with the top of waistband and the bottom pin to the bottom of the waistband on the unstitched side. Pin the rest of the zipper in place to secure it and stitch!
I love how the skirt hem is finished with a facing, it makes it sit really nice and gives a crisp hem.
I managed to get this beauty sewn in a few days even with the back adjustments, but for some reason it still stood away from my back a little but im thinking i needed to take in the seam more at the zipper but that’s the only issue with losing weight, you need to keep making adjustments!
I proudly worn this to SewdownDewsbury meet up with fellow sewists on Saturday 28th July. I can’t believe I’ve never been to Dewsbury before….how bad does that sound being a Yorkshire lass!!
We all had so much fun and its turns out that i am indeed an enabler and making the others buy things!!! I only came away with 3 pieces….. Here’s a pic with Alex and Lisa, Thanks Amy for the photo as for some reason never did get a full photo of my wearing the dress!
Here’s another pic of me (2nd photo in) from Carol, with me looking at the bargain Denims!!
But here is some photos of this beauty before being worn!
So there you go folks, hope my little trick of matching your waistband was helpful!
Ta ta for now!
Sal x
