On Saturday late afternoon I headed to Mary’s to begin our red dresses for the Project Red dress event. I was very excited to get to it and sew up my Simplicity pattern. For my dress I purchased satin backed Shantung in hopes of adding a very fashionable and high end look to the dress pattern, since the pattern was pretty casual in style. I chose to construct it like the 1st bottom inset picture with the contrast sash only, no contrast trim at the neck or sleeves. The pattern is simple enough, you know “Simplicity” however for the whole 9+ hours (into the wee hours of the morn’) we constructed our dresses Mary got much farther than me. At the end of the session I only constructed the top and sash of the dress while Mary had sewn hers and already gone to the event! (not really but she’s much farther than I am) Mary was kind enough for me to mooch some of her fabric for the sash but the instruction on how to make it had it being single layer with a double folded hem… not classy. Because of that I’m going to remake the sash to match the quality construction of the rest of the garment. I worked too hard on those sleeves for them to be overshadowed by an ugly sash. I’m going to re-purpose a black dress I have kept from my high school orchestra days; I knew there was a reason I kept it. There is more than enough to construct the sash. I know I can make the sash on my own but to complete the rest of my dress I’m going to need Mary’s iron and Teresa! I miss you iron and Teresa!

Mary was kind enough to feature me on her blog so I’m returning the favor. There she is in her super hot and posh vintage pattern complete with boob darts and midriff. Very nice… Sorry again Mary for sticking you with that pin!

I never would have been able to get the quality I was able to achieve with out Teresa’s guidance. Here’s the pro tips / sneaky tricks I’ve learned from her so far:

- Serge as many ends of the cut out fabric pieces to prevent fraying and create that professional look. Keep necklines and arm holes raw edged until you finish by adding on the other pieces like the sleeves or facing.

- Stitch the lining back on the seam allowance inside the garment instead of using a top stitch. This holds the lining in place once ironed, doesn’t roll and doesn’t show. Very nice finishing… I used this on my neckline where a top stitch would have looked very cheese on the nice silk fabric.

- Sew two sets of gather stitches to ease sleeves in, one of the threads is bound to break which it did.

- Iron, iron, iron…

- Fusible interface goes “raised dots” down… sorry again Mary for ironing interfacing to your iron!