Vogue Couturier 167 Part V

This is getting to be a mini-series. A mini-series wouldn't be complete without some drama, and I have had a little drama with this dress recently.

So, the bodice was done and the skirt was done, and all I had to do was sew them together. Seems like a simple task. As noted before, it takes 5 seams to do so, 5 very accurate seams to do so. As per the instructions, I stitch the seam at the top of the skirt front in which the collar gets sandwiched in. No problem. On to the next seams, which are a bit more complicated. These would be the seams perpendicular to the collar, headed down toward the body of the skirt. At the top of the seams, hidden beneath the collar is a small dart, as shown below. It is extremely important that these seams are exactly the same length, as we'll soon discover. What I decided to to - bad idea in retrospect - was to completely finish one side and then completely finish the other - which meant also sewing the seam that connects the bottom of the bodice with the top of the skirt. So, one seam for the collar, two seams on either side and two seams to finish attaching the skirt to the bodice. Here are those little darts, hidden under the collar from both the outside (the collar is pulled out of the way to the right) and the inside:


So what does this really mean? There are three seams that converge at one spot (the two described above and the relased pleat on the skirt), and if you're careful they will come out smooth, in the same spot on both sides and actually look like two seams instead of three. Yeah right. Mine didn't the first two times. This is where a little skill, and a lot of basting and whole lot more patience come in. I got the first side complete, went to complete the other side (basted it out) and discovered the predicament I was in. The point where the seams converge was about 1/4" higher on the one side than the other. Here's a picture of one side, from the outside and below that is one from the inside (the binding hasn't been stitched down yet):


Eventually, I decided to completely take out the first side, and redo it to match the second side. At this point, it was *all* basted just to make sure. It took pulling out the basting and redoing until I was happy. I ended up resewing the relased pleat, lengthing the seam with the tiny dart, and then resewing the bodice/skirt seam. Third time was a charm. I actually don't have any pictures of both sides completed. I was too excited and moved right on to the zipper.

The zipper instructions with the pattern say something to the effect, "Insert zipper as instructed on the zipper package." No problem. I put the pink invisible zipper in the side seam without too much ado.

I tried it on, and it fit just like the corrected muslin, thankfully!!!! No pictures, though. I will post some soon, because I need to decide on the hem length. I tried several lengths, and I think I'll post them for some input. It's the age old problem of my body not being the same as the as those models on the pattern bag. I'm at least 4 feet shorter than they are and with much shorter legs.

I got shoes!!! I had to find pink shoes. Pink is not a color that I normally wear, thus I don't have shoes for this dress. I don't even own white shoes of any kind. Now if you're talking black, I've got plenty of those. Thankfully, the great flea market of cyberspace did not disappoint, and here are the shoes.

I also got my covered belt kits, too! Maybe tomorrow I'll get to that, along with buttons, hems and finishing the necklace.