Final Outfit Two

Amys Costume

Dress 

As like each bodice I interfaced each panel of the bodice to add extra support and support to my garment. I made piping by sewing cord into bias binding, which made it stitch as close to the cord as possible holding in close. I made sure to pin the pining where the seam allowance would catch it rather than to the edge of the garments as this would not catch the bias tape correctly and show the stitch lines. I did this is every seam of the bodice to add features and to differetuate the different bodices further.

Moving onto the front middle panel I drew a grid onto the fabric so that when I start the beading process I can plan it better making it more symmetrical. I started beading with the central piece, starting small and adding to it, the design inspired from my samples in my book. I then worked out the next designs wanting them to be smaller to not take away from the middle piece. I added pieces planned by making the top half and bottom half have the same design on different sides to add variety but not much that it looks too random and unprepared. 

I used the same coloured beads around the design to add cohesion. After the main design were done I added smaller beaded design to fill in the gaps, I chose to do this to not overwhelm the design and take away from the bigger proper designs.

Moving onto the front middle panel I drew a grid onto the fabric so that when I start the beading process I can plan it better making it more symmetrical. I started beading with the central piece, starting small and adding to it, the design inspired from my samples in my book. I then worked out the next designs wanting them to be smaller to not take away from the middle piece. I added pieces planned by making the top half and bottom half have the same design on different sides to add variety but not much that it looks too random and unprepared. 

I used the same coloured beads around the design to add cohesion. After the main design were done I added smaller beaded design to fill in the gaps, I chose to do this to not overwhelm the design and take away from the bigger proper designs.

Next I needed to make the trim to go in the seam between the front and side front panels, so I took the lace and pleated it as I went and pulled it through the sewing machine. I took this slow as I hadn't pre-pinned where the pleats are so taking it slow allowed me to focus on my accuracy of the pleats in the measurements. I made sure to make more of this than I had thought I would need as I made the pleats quite tight and it neeed to travel the whole way of the front seam. I would periodically check the pleated laces length against the pattern to see how much more I needed to pleat. I then pinned the lace to once side of the fabric before pinning the other for the seam to make sure that the laces was accurately placed in the seam and wouldn't move when sewing. 

I then topstitched the front panel with the lace folder over outwards towards the sides seams, as without this the lace wasn’t laying flat and it was covering the beading. This has worked well as it now lays flat showing off the pleats and bead work, I made sure to sew slowly as it has kept the sewing neat and tp the edge of the panel.

I added the lining in and came across troubles in my sewing when getting to the point of the top of the front panel of the neckline as this was slightly bulky. To try and render this issue I trimmed down the fabrics on the inside. When adding in the lining and bagging it out at some point the stitches from the lace pleats were revealed so I flipped it back inside out and went over the line, adjusting it to be sewn with a better seam allowance which then hid the stitch lines.

For this garment, as it would need to go over the head as of the panniers I wanted to make sure that it would absolutely fit over the shoulders and bust. To do this I created a slit in the top of the dress and hand sewd the double turn hem down. II sewd this length of fabric onto the inside of the lining so that the raw edges would be completely hidden.

I then gathered the pink fabric that will be revealed in the middle of the dress. Once I had done this and pinned it in the gap I had to release some of the gathers from the sides to allow it fit in the gap better. 

Sewing this pink gather fabric onto the bodice was very challenging for me to do as even though I had pinned it I kept catching wrong parts of the lining in my sewing line, which I unpicked and then had the same problem again it was hard to work with this as I was getting frustrated as of the mistakes and because of the large amount of fabrics I was working with and had to keep moving around. In the end the fabric ended up on the wrong side of the lining but when I stitch the lining and front layer down I think it will be caught within this. 

As I was now confident that I had enough time to complete this, I re-looked at the blue and pink bodice, Amy March's, as it was looking as it wasn't sitting very well on my mannequin. I made my model try this on and it was slightly obscured on her at the body of the point where the bottom tip is. I believed the lining had been caught in my stitches when securing the skirt down. To try and fix this I unpicked this area of the sewing which slightly helped, but sat better once I had unpicked some of the pink layer of skirt which I could now see had been caught and lifted in areas once I had unpicked this, I re-sewd the lining down and pinned it more precisely. this has made the bodice sit better.

I then tried a few placements on the skirt to decided where to put the stitches and decided to go here as its near enough near the centre back to not be covered by the arm when it is down. I made sure to hide the thread start by going into the used of this new shape and not creating a knot beforehand but by stitching.