This is the last post for the Modern, Old-Fashioned dress.  At last!   It’s been a busy Sunday morning trying to finish up this lesson.  This post is very image-heavy so please don’t despair if this takes forever to load! (And sorry for the blurry first image, this is the only one.)

This post finishes up the dress, modified Built by Wendy pattern #3835, with the customized elasticized waist and ruffle hem.

Elasticized Waist

When I’m sewing for myself, I find it helpful to wear a full slip.  This way I can put on and take off the dress I’m making with ease and I can feel like I’m “decent” at my sewing machine, between fittings.  Of course, this is purely optional and if you enjoy sewing in your underwear, more power to you.

Ok, put on your dress and take the tie/sash that you plan to use as a belt.  I’m using 1″ Petersham ribbon; I’ll turn under the raw edges and hand sew them.  To finish your belt, you could also pink the edges or use Fray Check (But be careful because on some fabrics, Fray Check darkens the colors).

Tie the belt around your natural waist, snugly but not too tight.

Lift up your arms to pull up on the dress; the top part should blouse over the belt just a little (or more if you’d like).  This will ensure that you’ll have some room to move around once you give this dress a defined waist.

Pin around your waist, approximately in the middle of the ribbon.  Be sure to place a pin in each side seam, 1 in the center front and 1 in center back.

Now you are going to transfer some of the marks to the dress:  Take another pin and pin the dress, underneath the ribbon, exactly where the belt is pinned in place.  Then remove the pin from the belt.   Do this for the pins that are holding the belt to the front and maybe even the sides of the dress.  You can leave the belt pinned to the back unless you are quite acrobatic and can manage to transfer the marks there too.

Carefully remove your dress, being careful not to poke yourself in the eyes with the pins. Finish transferring the pins to the dress.  Turn dress inside out and lay flat.  At this point we’re going to draw/mark the waist line.  To make sure your line is even start measuring the sides, from the underarm (armscye) to the pin.   Measure the other side seam.  If they are close enough in length take the average and mark your dress with a fabric marking pen.  For example, if one side is 9″ and the other is 9 1/4,” mark each side seam at 9 1/8.”

You want your waistline to be relatively straight and not wonky.  If there is a pin way out of line, just ignore it and mark below or above it so you’ll get a nice even line across your dress. Mark the center front along the waistline.

Elastic: I used 1/2″ wide elastic the length of my waist minus 1.”  With the marking pen, mark 1/2″ from each end (mark on the softer side of the elastic if there is one).  Fold the elastic in half and mark the center.   Then fold the elastic to match the center mark with one of the end marks to find the quarter.  Repeat for other end.

Sew the elastic directly on top of your waistline with a wide zigzag stitch.  To start, place one marked end at the center back and pin.  Place the following quarter mark at the side seam and pin.

When you sew, your left hand should hold the already sewn part of the waist while your right hand holds the part yet to be sewn;  keep the fabric taut (flat) while feeding the fabric through the machine without pulling too much.  As you sew, pin the marks to the corresponding locations on the dress.  This is what it looks like from the outside when you are done:

Ruffle Hem

Put your dress back on.  Determine how long you want your dress to be.  Cut your dress 2 1/2″ shorter than the desired length.  (Why?  Because the ruffle is 3″ wide and we’ll attach it to the dress with a 1/2″ seam allowance.)  It might be helpful to have a friend mark the length.  Remove the dress.  Mark the center front.

The ruffle is in 2 strips, a front and back.  It’s 1 1/2 times longer than the width of the dress and 4 1/8″ tall (Unfinished).  So, if you measure the front bottom edge of the dress and it’s 22″ wide, then each strip should be (22 x 1 1/2) + 5/8 + 5/8 (for each seam allowance).  The total is 34 1/4″ for each strip.

Cut out your strips (parallel or crosswise to the grainline, it’s up to you).  Sew the strips together, making French seams, to form a loop.  Hem one side of the ruffle: turn under 1/4″ then again 3/8.”  Mark the center front and back on the raw edge.  Then gather the raw edge: sew 2 rows of stitches, at 1/4″ and 1/2″ from the edge, using the longest stitch on your machine.  (For some machines it’s a good idea to loosen the thread tension a little too.)

Pin the ruffle to the dress, right sides together, matching the side seams with the ruffle seams, the center marks to each other, and the raw edges.  Starting with the back, pull the the bobbin threads so that the fabric bunches up, or gathers, until the length of its raw edge matches the length of the dress.  Use your fingers to smooth and even out the gathers.  Pin in place.  Repeat with the front.  With the ruffle on top, (and making sure you’ve switched your stitch length back to normal) sew the ruffle to the dress.

Encase raw edges: trim the ruffle’s seam allowance to 1/4.”  Starting at a side seam, sew hem tape or seam binding to the seam allowances as close to the stitch line as possible.

Press seam allowances and seam binding towards top of dress (up).  Then sew the other edge of the hem tape onto the dress, encasing the raw edges of the dress hem and ruffle.  (If you are using seam binding that is not wide enough to encase the seam allowances, trim the seam allowances before you begin sewing).

Turn dress right side out and press.

That’s it!  Now you have a pretty and comfortable dress to wear during the remainder of the Summer season.  If you make one like this, please let me know, I’d love to see it!

I’m trying to finish up these lessons so you can get going on those dresses!    We’re almost done here; this post will go over the sleeves (included felled seams), sleeve hems and the neckline.  You could probably finish up this dress at the end of this post by simply stitching up a regular hem and forgoing the elasticized waist.  (You’d end up with a dress like this one.)   I really love this vintage minty green gingham although it was suggested to me that this looks a bit like a hospital gown.    Do you think so?  Maybe a hospital gown in an old-timey dream; a wayward girl spending her youth in an asylum.  In the South.  Somewhere haunting and romantic.  See, if I make a story out of it, the hospital gown idea seems kind of neat, yes?

Anyway, we left off with the side seams, made the fancy French way. Now, locate the last page of your pattern (Built by Wendy #3835) where it says Top C.  Follow step 1: stay stitching can help a curved seam like a neckline from stretching.  After you do that, skip down to step 3 and sew up the sleeves.  Remember to create French seams for the sleeve seams.  Press seams towards front of sleeve (Indicated with small/single notch).  Before you turn up the sleeve hem/casing, clip a little of the seam to reduce bulk:

When sewing the casing for the elastic (at the hem) leave the opening underneath the armhole, towards the back of the sleeve.  (The back is marked with the larger, or double, notch.)  This is where you’ll feed in your elastic.

Sew the sleeves to the dress as directed.  Since you pressed your sleeve seam towards the front and your side seam towards the back, your underarm won’t have a big lump in it from the side seams on top of each other.  Instead, they are next to each other, pressed in opposite directions:

You may pink the armhole seam allowances, serge them or sew a zigzag stitch close to the edge.  OR, and this is what I did, create flat-felled seams.  These are relatively easy to do although can be a little tricky around curves (like under the arm for example).  But let’s just try it anyway; they are neat and clean especially if you don’t have a serger. (You almost always see these seams on dress shirts.)

First press the seams.  Then trim the body’s seam allowances (not the sleeves’!) to 1/4.”

Starting with one sleeve, fold the wider, sleeve seam allowance over the smaller seam allowance towards the body (and therefore, away from the sleeve); pin.  I like to pin this type of seam parallel to the seam line.  It seems to be more secure this way.  (A quick note about pinning: it’s up for debate but I almost never sew over my pins, even when I pin perpendicular to the stitch line.  [Naturally I could not sew over the pins as they are shown in the photo!]  It’s much too likely to break a needle, dent a pin or worse, somehow damage your sewing machine.)

When you are folding and pinning under the arm you might be faced with some resistance because of the curve.  What I like to do, and perhaps I’m cheating a little, is clip the wider seam’s edge just a tiny bit in a few places along the curve, maybe 1/8.”  This would allow the seam allowance to stretch a little.  Just make sure to fold under the seam sufficiently enough so none of the raw edge sticks out.  When you are done with both sleeves, press.

This is what the inside of your flat-felled seam looks like:

And this is the outside:

Follow the rest of the instructions for Top C as written except for the last step (which is the hem).

Some notes about the last part of the directions:

• Clip the back’s center seam like you did for the sleeves (2nd photo from the top) before you turn under the neck casing.
• Put the elastic in the neckline before putting it in the sleeves – that way you can try on the dress and make sure it’s right before finishing up the sleeves.
• Leave the neckline casing opening at or near the back seam.
• Attach a safety pin to the end of your elastic to help you guide it through the casing.
• Make sure you don’t twist the elastic before you sew the ends together!
• After you’ve added the elastic to the neckline and sewed up the opening, stretch the neckline and evenly distribute the fabric.  Actually, I like to concentrate the fabric more in the sleeve area so the front is relatively flat.  Optional:  if you are feeling fancy, backstitch at each sleeve seam along the neckline to secure the elastic in place.
• Make sure your sleeve hems are not too tight!

We’ll finish up the dress in the next sewing lesson post: adding elastic to the waistline and adding the ruffle to the hem.  If you have any questions about this post, please leave a comment!  Thanks!

The actual sewing portion of our sewing lessons is finally taking place – yippie!  I thought it was really important for me to work on this this past weekend, being that this is a summer dress and it’s almost August! (Although for those of us in California, summer is only beginning.)

Before we start, I want to let you know that I updated the last post (about cutting) with an alternative method to transferring pattern marks – this could be especially helpful for beginners. (Thanks, Andrea!)  And to recap, these sewing lessons focus on recreating my own Built by Wendy dress, pattern #3835.

Let’s sew!  To begin, follow the directions in the pattern for Dress A, Mini Dress B: Pockets A. As you can see in the above photo, I only added one pocket (on the left because I’m left-handed), added rick rack and cut the pocket piece on the bias (diagonal to the grainline).  This is not how I made the original Modern, Old-Fashioned Dress but since this is my 3rd time making this pattern I had to do something different!  Feel free to make these changes (or any, really) but if you’re a beginner it might be best to make the more simple version (pocket cut as indicated on the pattern); sewing rick rack on the bias can be a little frustrating which can lead to you not liking sewing!  (To clarify, fabric cut on the bias has stretch and sewing stretchy fabric can be tricky.)

Anyhow, I usually like to pin perpendicular to the stitch line as you can see here:

After you sew on the pockets, continue following the rest of the pattern, making the back darts.  Don’t forget to leave long (3″ or so) threads at the beginning and end of your darts so you can tie knots (as opposed to backstitching).

French Seams: For the back and side seams I made French seams, which is where the seam allowances are completely enclosed within themselves; this is great because it looks nice and prevents raveling.

This is how I like to do it:  Begin with the back center seam.  First, with WRONG sides (of the fabric) together, stitch seam 1/4″ from the edge.  Cut any loose threads that stick out.

Open up the back so the entire piece lays flat.  Press the seam flat, with the seam allowance to one side.  Then fold the back piece along the stitch line, RIGHT sides together, enclosing the seam; press.  Stitch the seam 3/8″ from the edge, enclosing the previously made 1/4″ seam allowance.  Open up the back piece again and press the seam nice and smooth.  (It doesn’t matter to which side the seam allowance falls.)

Repeat this process for the side seams; when you are done press seam allowances towards the back of the dress.

In our next lesson, we’ll begin with the sleeves – stay tuned!