As promised, I will now write and draw how the patchwork dress was sewn.
Sewing the skirt part of the dress was much the same as described in the piece on the patchwork skirt. I will write it very briefly again and add the story of sewing the dress's bodice at the end. And pictures too, in case my account seems confusing.
How the patchwork dress was sewn...
1. I dug through the piles of fabric and picked out fabrics in colours that go together. This time's choice consisted of warm tones: oranges, creams, browns and a little green in among them.
2. Using a rotary cutter I cut a stack of squares 14x14 cm. For the bodice part, rectangular pieces, so that the skirt fits more closely at the top. A waist that is not in its first youth is not fond of flounces, gathers and frills. 🙂
3. I sorted the squares into stacks by colour and started sewing the squares together with the overlocker. But not quite straight: I cut the squares 1 cm narrower at the top, into a trapezium.
4. From the squares I made long tiers, adding 2 extra squares to each following row at first, and in the last rows already 4 squares more than in the previous row.
5. I sewed the tiers of squares into rings at the ends and gathered the top edge with an ordinary machine. For that I used an extra long stitch and an upper thread pulled tighter than usual. Gathering that way meant there was no need to pull the thread by hand afterwards. Just as I gathered them with the machine, so they fitted together when I sewed the rings to one another with the overlocker.
6. I sewed the bodice together and attached all the rings of the skirt to it one after another with the overlocker. Before starting to sew on a new ring of the skirt, I turned it until it seemed that identical squares would not end up above one another.
7. For the bodice of the dress I took an old plain orange sweatshirt, and for the binding a top with little orange flowers. For the binding I used 4 cm strips joined diagonally.
8. I tacked the binding to the neckline and the armholes and ran it down with the overlocker. Since I do not yet have a coverstitch machine, I also tacked the second seam of the binding by hand at first and then ran it down with an ordinary sewing machine. I used a stretch seam stitch, straight stitches alternating with zigzag.
9. Finally, as decoration, a belt and a little tie of green flowered chiffon. Snap, and it is finished.
Now if summer would only arrive, I could go and show it off in town. 😛
