Simplicity 1882: The finished dress!

As promised in my fitting post, I am finally going to show you the DRESS!

Pattern: Simplicity 1882, which is an amazing fit pattern. This means this pattern comes with an 1" seam allowance at the side seams and contains some detailed instructions about fitting the dress. The only thing it did not have was a pattern for the lining. So I drafted that by myself after watching the Craftsy class "Underneath it all" by Linda Lee. The lining is by no means perfect as you will see soon, but wearable.

Fabric: I used a poly-cotton for the shell (it is my first flower dress, yeah) and some polyester and anti-static fabric for the lining. And I really had to sew a lining, because when fitting the dress it was clinging like crazy to my legs.

Construction: Was straight forward because I had assembled so may muslins and knew what to do :) There is not much that I can add to my fitting post, so this post will mainly show you some pictures! I planned to add a collar as well, but I needed to redraft it and just couldn't be bothered after all the troubles I had.

The dress features an invisible zipper, which I put in with the help of  Tanias tutorial. 

Zipper - what zipper?

To show off the design lines I added some piping, but unluckily the cotton I picked is a bit stiff and thick and thus I feel a bit like wearing a life belt. But at least, my "food baby" fits. In the next picture, you can see the stiff piping under the bust. I hope that after another wash (with loads of fabric conditioner), the piping will get a bit softer and does not show any more

.

Here I would just like to point out the nice fitting princess seams! I know there are some wrinkles under the arm, but I think these are because of my lining.

I also stitched in a little label that my sister gave me for my birthday. It felt great to put it in :)

The first time I tried to pull up the zipper it caught my lining! Lescha was trying to free the zipper teeth which proofed to be difficult as the dress was on my mannequin and I had tried several times to free the zipper (which made things worse, naturally). But the internet helped! I only used a pencil to "grease" the zipper teeth and was able to pull the zipper don again. I then decided it would be best to handstitch the lining to the zipper to avoid a similar situations whilst wearing the dress! How do you keep your lining out of the zippers reach? Ant tricks? Please let me know.

Another question: How would you stitch your lining to the sleeves seams? I didn't know what to do and also couldn't find any advice on the internet. But I remembered I had seen a dress whose armholes + lining had been finished with bias tape. I really like the clean finish, but have the feeling that it adds a lot of bulk to the armhole seams. So, if you have any advice, it would be great if you could share it.

Here is a pic from the whole lining. It actually is the dress pattern plus facing. For the facing I used the same stiff cotton as for the piping, because I wanted to have a crisp neckline. I only had problems at the bottom of the V, which was difficult to stitch. So next time, I would redraft this V maybe into a little curve to make sewing easier.

The front!

Here is the back - with the shifted lining. It is so annoying that I didn't manage to match these seams. That's why the bottom of this zipper is not smooth either. 

It was my first try making a lining, so it is a bit wonky.

So, I am off to Ukraine now for some well deserved holidays and family visit :) Hopefully the situation will stay calm... Speak to you soon :)