Friday morning, at 6:47 a.m., I decided to make my sister a sundress for her birthday. The time stamp is important there, because Saturday at about 6 p.m. we were celebrating her birthday, and two days before I'd dug through my stash and decided I didn't have anything that would work for a sundress.
I was wrong—I had some poly crepe georgette in a great jagged chevron pattern, and two yards of sparkly glazed cotton batiste I'd forgotten about. Just enough to make a sundress, with a bit to spare in case of ruinous mistakes.
That decided, I worked on pattern ideas in my head as I drove to work, and by the time I arrived I had something like a plan. A halter dress with slightly gathered cups, a shaped bodice, and a rectangular gathered skirt—the lightness and drape of the fabric would do the rest.
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| Testing pattern direction for the straps. |
I made some extremely quick calculations for sizing the pieces, pinned the georgette to the batiste to stabilize it and keep my pieces as close to identical as possible, and started measuring. Truncated scalene triangles for the cups, attached to a shallow pentagon that forms the front bodice piece; back bodice pieces are rectangles, and the straps are long rectangles folded in and stitched. The skirt is three loosely-measured rectangles: two back pieces about 30 inches wide each, and a front piece about 54 inches wide.
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| Bodice pieces pinned to enclose the raw edges when flipped right side out, with the lower edge of the cups also sandwiched. |
By Friday night when I went to bed, I'd gotten the bodice completely constructed, the straps stitched and attached, and the fashion skirt and half the lining skirt pieces stitched together and seams finished (French seams, both for speed and clean, flexible finish).
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| Attaching the lower sides of the cups to the edges of the back bodice pieces. |
I left the bodice edges raw until after attaching the skirts, fashion fabric to fashion fabric and lining to lining.
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| Pinning the lining skirts to finish enclosing raw edges in the bodice. |
I gathered the fashion fabric to fit the width of each corresponding bodice piece, pinning it to death and stitching with the tiniest running stitch I could manage (remember the deadline? It's approaching quickly). The lining skirt was shaped pieces, to reduce bulk at the waistline, so it just needed to be stitched on straight, and then the raw edges of both waist seams flipped up and secured with another row of stitching passing though the lining and fashion skirts to attach them and enclose the raw edges.
Unfortunately I have no more construction photos, but let's see how dedicated to taking photos
you are in the twelfth hour of a marathon sewing project. Once the skirts were attached, I folded in and topstitched the upper raw edges of the bodice pieces. Next was setting the zipper, which involved a lot of pins, stabbing, and fiddling with wriggly raw edges of georgette that
really didn't want to be enclosed by the same seam that attached the zipper. Zipper attached, I folded under and flat felled the remaining back skirt seam edges (I'd waited to seam the back until the zipper was placed; it ended up going about two-thirds down the skirt, so next time I'll use a shorter zipper), and the only remaining tasks were placing the hook and eye at the top of the back seam and hemming. No big deal. I only had about 150 inches to hem, after all, and hooks and eyes aren't terribly time-consuming to place.
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| The skirt is still unhemmed here, but it really doesn't look different with the hem done. |
And at the end of it, I'd spent about 14 hours working on this dress, and V loved it. Always a satisfying end to a big present, but next time, I think I'll give myself a week.
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