A sleeveless empire-waisted sheath dress with a witty (ha, ha; little BWOF joke for you there) juxtaposition of pinstriped menswear wool suiting and a bias plaid standing collar.
The initial inspiration for this dress came from an Akris, fall 2008 rtw dress--a striped dress with a high collar:
But then I was also looking at a lot of dresses by McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, so this dress ended up a melange of several influences, which makes it mine instead--all mine, really, since I drafted the pattern from a torso block I developed from the 2-dart bodice I draped last month.
(Sorry for the dress form photo, which means you can't see how great it all looks with my new boots, but I don't have time for a photo shoot and won't for days. I expect you'll be able to manage.)
Details:
The dress is fully lined in Bemberg:
I prefer facings to lining to the edges (it's too easy for the lining to show at the armholes, and who wants that), so I used facings, & I merged neck and armhole facings on both front and back. The vent corner/hems are mitered, and the lining attached there by machine also.
I bagged the lining, which always amuses me--all that complicated, counter-intuitive rolling up of things, turning things inside and out, etc., and just when you think you've done it, you've made a horrible twisted up ball that will never redeem itself and is probably crumpled beyond belief, voila, you pull it all back out the right way and every seam is attached by machine in a way that looks impossible unless you know how it's done.
Here's how:
1) Sew the lining together at the shoulders. Also sew the dress together at the shoulders. Do not sew up the side seams.
2)
Do what you need to do at the neck. This dress had a standing collar,
which was sewn to the lining neck in addition to the shell neck, so I
put that in.
3) However, I also like to attach linings to zippers by
machine, so I then put the zipper in and attached the lining as per
usual.
4) Time to do the armholes. Here's where it all gets hard to visualize, so here are a few pictures:
Turn the lining to the inside and lay the dress flat:
Note that the side seams are still unsewn.
Decide which armhole you're going to do first, then roll the dress up sideways, starting from the opposite armhole:
Keep rolling:
Rolled:
Now reach under the nice little roll and grab the lining belonging to the armhole you want to sew and bring that out from under the roll so that you can pin it to the shell, right sides together, for sewing. Doing so will make a sandwich of the rest of the dress--a kind of a little bag, in fact:
Sew it, press it, press the seams open, clip, etc. Then just reach in and pull the sandwiched part of the dress out. Don't worry; it will indeed come out untwisted and unwrinkled.
Press your armhole from the right side, then repeat the rolling and sandwiching to do the other armhole.
As for the side seams, once the armholes are complete, you need to sew those up. And what you do here is pin the corresponding lining seams together right side in, as well as the corresponding dress seams right side in. Then sew in a continuous fashion from the lining hem, up to the armhole, past the armhole and down the other side (the dress side) to the dress hem. (Or do it in whatever direction you like; I had empire seams to match and keep from shifting, so I sewed from the armhole down to each hem in turn.) Press, turn it right side out, press again, etc., etc. Works like a charm, and you get a beautiful professional finish.
