Anniversary Dress Part 2

Hello Chickadees,

So I braved the crazy sale at my local fabric store to get the supplies for this dress. It was kind of fun to hunt through the store for the perfect fabrics. I even ended up finding a bolt of fabric that I'd been looking at online earlier in the month. More on that one in a later post.

I found a fabric very similar to stretch cotton sateen. I've used this fabric before, and I am in love with it! It has a great lustre, and enough stretch to be comfortable in fitted garments. I picked up a metre of it in black, and had enough left over to make a vintage-inspired bustier to wear with some summer skirts.

I had planned on buying tulle for the skirt, but when I got there, the tulle selection wasn't really what I wanted. Everything was either too white, or too yellow, or not fine enough. So I gingerly approached the organzas.

Now, I've never sewn with organza before, and it frightened me a little bit. Turns out, it's not all that bad, providing you use the right needle. I ended up picking up about 6 metres of ivory poly organza. I originally only got 3 metres, but it wasn't enough to create the fullness that I needed.

I decided to line the dress, so that it would feel nice to wear. I picked up both black and ivory Bemberg Rayon lining. This stuff feels so nice, but is a giant pain in the butt to cut and sew. It's so slippery!

Here's how the bodice looks, all cut out and marked.

I used the Sultry Sheath bodice from Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing. If you like vintage style garments, and great sewing instructions, I would highly recommend this book.

Organza looks like fluffy clouds!

The most intimidating part was the organza. My machine is super finicky (I have affectionately named her Gimpy), and has not enjoyed sewing fine fabrics in the past. Luckily, this time the sewing gods were with me, and we only had 2 minor setbacks!

Gimpy's getting ready for some tough work

All five organza layers of the skirt are french seamed separately. I wanted a very floaty skirt! I managed to get my serger (also super finicky) to create a decent looking rolled hem, so all 5 layers are hemmed with a rolled hem. I love the extra body it gives to the skirt! I am so so glad I got my serger working, because I was dreading hemming all those circle skirts by hand.


I still have to insert the zipper, and add some beading around the top of the skirt. That will be done in front of the tv tomorrow, at girl's night.

The organza is trying to take over!

I'll be taking photos of this dress on Sunday, so check back for photos of the finished dress!