Well, I’ve been gone a while! I had a baby boy last year so I didn’t do any sewing for myself. Now he’s big enough that I can sneak some sewing time in here and there again. I also have a new sewing machine: a Spiegel 60609 and I’m so excited to use all the stitches I now have access to! And it’s so pretty, so that’s a plus, too!
One project that I’ve wanted to make for a while is a dress to wear with my cowboy boots so earlier this year I narrowed down patterns until I found one. I ended up deciding on Vogue 8727 in View B because I liked the halter neck and full skirt. I went with a light blue lace from Fabric Mart Fabrics with a navy blue cotton lining.
Dress and Boots
I didn’t quite think it through enough to realize I should have under lined all the lace pieces to make it work perfectly, but I free styled along the way and everything looks great now! I ended up under lining all the midriff and skirt pieces, but left the rest without. Though I decided to only line the top and not the skirt so I wouldn’t have too much fabric going on down there.
When I had the dress on my dress forum and was getting ready to start hemming I looked at it and decided I wanted the skirt to be MUCH fuller than what it was. I started pinning some 1″ horsehair braid in, but it still want full enough. I decided to order some 3″ horsehair braid from amazon and it gave it just enough oomph!
Dress Fullness Comparison – No horsehair braid on left, 3″ braid on right. Ignore the messy fabric stash in the background.
I had never worked with the braid before, but it seemed simple enough from my internet research. I sewed the bottom edge along the front of the skirt and flipped it under, encasing the raw edges. Then I started pulling the gathering threads along the top so it would lay flat. I pulled them a lot every several inches, but I probably should have pulled less, but every inch or two.
After all the gathering I used my machine to attach purchased single fold bias tape along the edge of the braid. I think when I did this I lost some of the gathers because it ultimately didn’t lay as flat as I thought it would. After that was done, I hand stitched the 6 yard (!!!) hem to the skirt so I would have a thread line showing from the outside. But I love it and it was worth it for all the twirling I can do now!
SO. MUCH. HEMMING. This was pre-hemming.
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