Sewing Vloggers

Friday, June 11, 2010

McCalls 6116, aka, The Green Dress continues...

I think anyone who sews a lot sort of develops their own style of sewing after a while. In the past few years I tend to do more unit sewing. I find it lets me focus on details a little better. I start most of my projects by doing all the small details first, the collar, pockets, and sleeve tabs in this case. They are all interfaced, stitched, topstitched and buttonholed. Now I can just grab them when needed as I stitch the body of the dress.
Once  the detail pieces were complete I set about marking the main pieces of the dress. Here you can see my thread tracing of the center front. I do this on everything now. Any one who has bust issues really should do this as those center fronts need to match perfectly to keep the grain hanging properly. If not, you need some sort of bust adjustment. It also helps with buttonhole placement. It takes so little time to do. I also thread trace other details such as pocket placements. Things like notches and dots are usually just marked with a sharp mechanical pencil or just snipped. Most patterns don't require it but I always mark the center backs or centers of collars and such with a snip mark. I find this really helps further on down the line to get correct placement.

Today was a day off and all that engenders so I got some good sewing time in. I have also been doing a 8-9:00pm stretch every night after the dinner dishes are done. Any later and I start making mistakes. Thought I would leave you with a pic of granddaughter Sophie for whom I have made many dresses. She is a very tall five and is showing me her dance recital moves. She insisted on getting dressed up in her current favorite dress. I just love that she loves to "dress" and twirl. Makes a grandma feel good...Bunny

12 comments:

  1. I also tend to do unit sewing. Which I did today, have the units ready to put the outfits together for Chloe and Zoe as I am making matching outfits.

    Just have to say how much I love that green print, its going to be fantastic when done.

    Sophie, is just a doll and she looks tall in the picture. Did you make the dress she is wearing?

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  2. Bunny, your little Sophie is such a sweetie! Don't you just love that age when they love to show off? I can see why that dress is her favorite. It's lovely.

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  3. Little Sophie is just so cute. I remember my Sofie doing the same. Now she is in front of the computer still in her PJ's at 6.00pm..lol. Still a little girl at heart -she is playing Sims3 - which is really just dolls on the computer.

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  4. I like to unit sew also. Lately, any method of sewing would be welcome! Your little Sophie is a pretty little girl. How fun to sew for her!

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  5. Unit sewing is definitely a time saver. It's also the kind of thing that stops the flow when you are constructing the dress. It's looking good.

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  6. I love your new dress (in pieces :>) and your DGD is precious in her twirly dress and dance shoes!

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  7. Your green dress is interesting me. Can't wait to see it come together. Your gd. is a sweetie.

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  8. Sophie is so beautiful as is the dress she's wearing! Aren't grandkids the best!!!

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  9. What a beautiful GD! The dress is feminine and perfect.

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  10. I have learned to do the unit thing as well. I do all that tedious stuff that takes time and concentration because by the time I have the rest pretty much done, I tend to get in a hurry and not be so careful with the points and stitching that I should.

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  11. Sophie's adorable. I too, am wondeirng if you made her dress ( and didn't blog about it!)
    We just finished up with Recital week last Saturday. Whew, what a week!
    Vickie, my two younger dds are ALSO Sims fans, the younger one more so lately- never thought of it as playing dolls, hmmmm, that might make it slightly more acceptable. She showed me yesterday that one of her "dolls" was "interacting" with a ghost!

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  12. I loved to twirl when I was a little girl :-) Thanks for the tip about unit sewing, I am fairly new to garment sewing and have tended to skip the detailed bits because it all gets a bit too much.

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