Draping II class project #2 of 4

There are those unfortunate souls who might recall the Draping II class project 1, or the “pink monstrosity”. While that project itself was hideous and I loathed it, what it did do was give me an idea which I spent the next 3 class projects refining. The original idea had been a sundress with an elastic top. Utterly scraping thati idea, I kept the empire waist sundress idea with the sheer overlayer. I tossed out the elastic top and replaced it with a “bra top”. Here’s version one:

It a black satin base with a black sheer overlayer. I put the kickpleats in the front of the dress with the idea that it will help make the sheer overlayer move more. You’ll have to excuse the heinously wrinkled appearance. They’ve been in the trunk of my car for several months, and then wadded up on the table with a cat sleeping on them most of the time. And I was FAR too lazy to bother ironing them before their post-mortem photo session. Anyway, the satin base layer is a FITTED dress. The sheer overlayer, however, is not and flows straight down from the underbust.

The weight of the dress is held by the thin straps I added. I figured having the entirety of the thing black was too much, so I got a little iron-on bling to dress up the underbust line and the straps. Overall, it’s a very nice dress and I was rather happy with the pattern.

The back is pretty plain, with all details on the front of the dress. The back utilizes what’s supposed to be an invisible zipper, but I destroyed several such zippers before finally getting one in properly. Zippers and I are not friends, and it’s a trend that followed through will the dresses, most especially the last one.

So while the pattern itself came together beautifully, my sewing skills were less than up to the task. Or I was just lazy and tired and trying to cram it all together the night before the dress was due. heh. First off, that zipper (the bane o’ my existance) is not meeting properly at the top, leaving an extra unsightly gap. Fortunately, I do mostly historical garb and so zippers aren’t part of the repetoire but I *should* be better at them than I am. grrrrr.

Next up, I had a slight oversight in my plan on how the overlayer and the underlayer would work together, especially since the back was one piece at the side and the front was 3 separate pieces joining at the side seam, not counting the overlayer. I overlayed the bra-top pieces and treated them a single layer of fabric, and while that part worked the great where I had the problem was trying to get the free-floating underbust layer to meet nicely with the side seam of the entirely freefloating back overlayer. This was an example of “technical oversight”, and I didn’t realize it would be a problem until I was staring it thinking “why isn’t this working?!” i kind of forced it, and it looks that way, so right there is the first modification for the second version of this design!

This next one is probably more nit-picky, but details matter. The iron-on bling-belt right to the overlayer (which is free floating!) probably wasn’t the brightest idea. And there is modification number 2 of this design! Besides, my iron-foo is not the greatest and so the belt isn’t straight. You can really see it with the next one.

Lastly, sheer material is a bitch to hem and seam. I did french seams on all the sides, which worked out reasonally well, but my first attempt at the hem was so terrible the teacher made me go back and redo it. Fortunately, she explained to me what I had done wrong. Armed with this information, I had to cut off the original hem (which is why this overlayer is in some places shorter than the satin underlayer) and then redo it. It’s still not great, but much better. In addition, I realized trying to keep the kick-plates on the overlayer was more work than the final look required, and so there is modification number 3.

All in all, I really liked this dress. It’s a great beginning, and I learned a lot about what works in a design and WHY. Definitely a worthy successor to the pink-monstrosity!

Related posts:

Draping II class project #3 of 4 Draping II class project #4 of 4 Draping I Final Project Draping II Project I