High, Low and More

Closures of the dress, pleating and finishing

Hello everyone for anyone who is still reading, I am sorry I wasn't able to update this sooner since this is actually a dress I had to basically make from three different patterns and still gave me hair pulling moments. I will list the patterns used below after this but, onto the dress!

This dress I can't even give you the exact fabric yardage it took since I just took a bunch of fabric I had and layer and cut but, I am going to estimate at about 3-4 yards of fabric. The top of the bodice piece, the neckline wasn't originally broken but, I wanted it open so I had took some news paper, traced over all the original piece and then pinned and altered on my dress form. I then had to decide how to cover the bust of the dress so I chose fabric that would be contrasting. I also used elastic to give it that effect. The middle of the dress I wanted to leave open but, not have the panties showing so I had to cut an extra piece of fabric, then top stitched it and added it. The skirt was originally longer and was a split but, I wanted to add pleating and give the dress some volume. I thought of just going with that design of making it the  regular skirt but, it didn't seem to have much volume to it and wanted to add something extra. So I pleated, added extra inches for more pleating and sewed. Looking at it a second time for some reason I have the strangest vibe of a cowboy skirt kinda thing, I don't know why though.

The closures are a centered zipper (I'm not the best with zippers but, I tried my best! Also a hook and eye for the bodice. Their are darts there since if I didn't ad the darts it was hugging the body figure in where I felt like side boob could have been seen. The finishings on all of this are domestic so you have the french seam for one, and it is lined on the inside so you can't see the seams for the bodice. The high low portion of the skirt I did a bit different. I sewed down the skirt on both sides first at about half an inch then treated it as a regular piece of fabric, sewn at the standard 5/8's and then finished it by folding again and sewing down. 

Anyway what do you guys think? I would love to read your comments and plan to make a skirt for my next project. That will be up hopefully by next week.