This weekend was sewing time for a girl's night out dress for my youngest daughter and a mother-of-the-bride dress for me. I am working with two of my favorite materials, leather (fake) and lace.
Pleather Mini Dress
First step was to cut out the lining and perfect the fit before cutting into the pleather fabric. Pleather is unforgiving of mistakes and a needle hole once made is forever--so any mistakes need to be made on the poly/cotton lining fabric. The white stitches seen in the picture are hand basting so my daughter could try on the lining. While hand stitching may seem slow, it is faster than making a mistake, and is easy to remove. It is also more comfortable to try on and is more accurate than pin fitting.
The neck facing is made of lining fabric. I fused it to the interfacing, then pinked the edges.
Since the lining fit, I then cut out the pleather dress pieces. After doing some research, it seemed the consensus among dressmakers was to use a jeans needle in the machine (jeans needles are sharp enough to penetrate the vinyl coating of the faux leather) and a relatively long stitch length (3mm) to minimize holes while still making a strong seam. A roller foot is used to help the fabric feed evenly under the needle.
I will reveal more of this dress later as I speed toward the finish line!
Lace
For my gown, I have a dove grey stretch lace fabric. Again, I cut the bodice first from lining fabric and hand basted it together for a trial fitting. I then removed the basting and decided to use the lining pieces as an underlining instead of a lining. What is the difference? An underlining is basted to the fashion (outer) fabric and the two layers are treated as one, while a lining is constructed separately from the garment and attached only at some points such as the neckline. By using an underlining, the lace will be more stable and easier to handle. Here are some pieces of the lace basted to the underlining:
I am leaving the sleeves unlined, however. For the sleeve seam. I used a double-stitched seam. Lace doesn't ravel, so this is a less bulky alternative to a French seam.
The taffeta skirt is cut out, but I have not begun sewing it yet. Again, I will update as my work progresses.
Happy Needlework Monday!
