This year's Easter Dress was special. I attempted and accomplished some new sewing hurdles and with some of my most treasured fabric finds.
We'll start with the slip. I melded view 1 with view 3. A girl must have maximum puff in the skirt.
Yes, there is a seam down the center front because I forgot to cut the piece on the fold. I had used my best pima cotton for the slip for the softest touch against SweetPea's skin and didn't want to waste any so I just stitched the two pieces together - after all, it wouldn't be seen anyway.
I used my vintage Singer Ruffler Attachment for the crinolin (which I found last summer at the annual Antique Festival) - that was a lot of gathering and using the Ruffler made it a 1000 times easier. The gathers turned out beautifully. For the lower part of the hem I adjusted the attachment for plaiting.
I decided on a variation between view 1 and view 2 for the actual dress. Fabric is vintage and came from an old, original SINGER Sewing Center - probably 1950's. It has tiny flocked florals and fruit. The coordinate is vintage as well - a flocked dotted organdy.
I was very pleased with how the back turned out, too... especially the big bow!
The pattern called for just a narrow hem on the tie sides and ends - I didn't like the idea for that particular look, so I doubled the pattern cutting and stitched two pieces for each tie together then turned each one right side out. A much cleaner look, don't you think?
I added some crinolin on the underside of the top part of the sleeve, so that each one would puff upward. All hems were blind-stitched by hand - a bit tricky with sheer fabric.
