Patrones #282, Model #36 - Red Print Dress

Part Three, Baste and Stitch

After carefully cutting out the dress, it was time to baste the underlining to the fashion fabric. This fabric needs an underlining because the beige areas are a bit sheer, you can see my onyx ring through the fabric fairly well in the photo below.

Bunny asked what type of fabric this is. Well, I bought it at Metro Textiles in NYC, and saw it later on EmmaOneSock (long since been sold out) and found it is was from the designer Milly and that is a blend, partially polyester is all I can remember. The beige areas are a bit gauzy and the red is woven in and then cut at the edges of the motifs, like cut velvet. This is one of the better photos I have of the edges:

You can see the difference between the wrong side (on left) and right side in the photo below. The wrong side actually looks like a burgundy or cranberry color, but the right side is a vibrant red.

Anyway, after cutting, I started the basting. I basted around all the edges and then basted the darts down the center before carefully pinning and stitching them.

All of course, under the watchful eyes of my assistant:

Once the darts were completed, I stitched the shoulder seams.

Normally I would insert the zipper first and then sew the shoulder seams, but today was not the day and tomorrow isn't looking good either between appointments, leaf raking and dinner at a friend's house. It will probably be Monday or Tuesday before I have some quiet time to work on that zipper, which will take my full concentration to make sure the motifs all line up properly. At any rate, I wanted the feeling of a little progress, so I figured those two little shoulder seams couldn't hurt!

Notice I have left the side seams unsewn. This is part of the preparation for inserting the lining. There are a couple of ways to do this in a sleeveless garment and I'll show you one way next week.

Parting Shot: Approval. Seems like Wellie likes the Milly fabric, too. He's got good fashion sense like his companion the Fabric Princess.