Friday, May 30, 2008

The first cut is the hardest

I took scissors to the Liberty fabric last night. I modified the front bodice piece of V8352 to remove the attached facing and add a seam allowance. I'm not wasting precious fabric on facings - I think the warm tan I've chosen will work well as the facings anyway, and accent the floral on the Liberty rather than drowning me in too much of it. I've only cut the bodice at this point because I'm still thinking deep thoughts about the skirt. I also cut the bodice in white batiste underlining - Liberty lawn is so fine that it would just droop without any underlining, and batiste will give it strength without really adding any weight. I need to buy that stuff by the bolt, I swear, for the amount of it I use.

As far as the bottom of the dress, I just finished a BWOF skirt the other night, the petite #122 from the 4/2006 issue. What a cute skirt! It looks like a plain straight skirt from the front, but the back yoke dips down a bit and there are soft pleats in the back which add a really pretty fullness to the skirt without adding any unnecessary (or unflattering) fullness to me. My thought at this point is to use this as the skirt to my dress - the bodice of #8352 curves down almost in the same shape as the skirt yoke, and if I measure properly, I could do inserts of the contrast fabric for the insides of the pleats. I had a suggestion on yesterday's post about using a similar print for the contrast, but I think searching for a print that would work with this would take longer than making the dress. Plus if I find something I do like, I can guarantee the texture will be all wrong. In the end, much as I sometimes like looking like a walking patchwork quilt, I really don't think I want to give the Liberty competition. It might not like it.

I really doubt if I can stretch the fabric enough to do the entire skirt in just Liberty, so I need to make up my mind what I want. I think I'll do the structural sewing on the bodice tonight and pin it to my new skirt (which I'm wearing) and see how the shapes work together. If they're happy, then I'll figure out how to make the fabric work. If they aren't, then I'll do what I did for the skirt lining and fold the pleats out of the pattern piece and cut it straight and maybe be able to get it all from original fabric. Maybe. Unless I do something different.

2 comments:

Keely said...

I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with. :)

Claire said...

That's a really cute skirt!