V1546 Halter Dress pt 4 of 4

We’re almost there! This is the last tutorial for this dress. I showed you how to sew the bodice in the last tutorial, now we’ll sew the skirt and do the finishing details.

First I want to flatline my skirt pieces, but before that – I’m thinking ahead now – I fused a 1” strip of tricot interfacing at center back where the zipper will be. I’m not putting the zipper right at the center back seam, I’m putting it in the center back pleat.

So I’ve pinned (well, wonder clipped, but that takes too long to say) the edges except for the bottom, and I’m going to sew them together. I did this for the front skirt and the two back skirt pieces, leaving the bottoms open on all of them.

I cut the pocket facings out of fusible tricot, fused it to the laser-cut spandex, and then cut the facings out again so there wouldn’t be any holes for my fingers to get caught in.

To attach the facings to the pockets I’m doing it a little different from the pattern instructions. Surprise, surprise!

I marked out where the facing edge hits on the pocket.

Then drew a line a half inch – double the 1/4” seam allowance – in toward the side seam of the pocket.

Now I can line up the facing to the line and pin it in place.

Sew at 1/4”, and then fold it over for a nice clean edge.

Then top-stitch it down close to the edge.

The pocket bags with facings get sewn onto the back skirt panels. I matched the notches, and because I cut the skirt down for the belt, my pockets hang over the top a little. That’s okay, I’ll cut them down later.

Press the seam toward the pocket.

The pocket bags with no facings are sewn to the front skirt, matching the notches, and the pressed toward the pocket too.

Then line up the edges of the side seams and pin.

Sew up from the hem at 1/2″ (or 5/8″ if you didn’t trim the seam allowances down like I did) just up to the lower notch of the pocket bag. Be sure to back-tack, then move up the skirt and stitch just a bit at the top from the upper notch to the waist edge, leave the pocket open. Then stitch the pocket bag edges together as close to the side seam as you can get.

I want to press the side seams open, so I snipped under the pocket bag so the seam can lay flat. Then I pressed it open with a press cloth.

At the pocket I want the side seams to just butt up against each other like shown above.

I pinned the pleats together just like I did on the fit sample, but I’m not going to sew them down with little “L”s.

I’m only going to sew across the top to hold them.

I stopped at the side seam to move the pocket bags out of the way because I don’t want to sew through those just yet.

After the pleats were sewn I spread the skirt on the table and pinned the pockets where they laid nicely. I held it up to make sure it wasn’t pulling anywhere funny, and then stitched the pockets at the top of the skirt.

Now I want to insert the invisible zipper. The first thing I do is iron it open. Unzip it and from the back side, rolling the teeth flat and press each side. This will make it easier to sew close to the teeth edge.

I marked the edge of the pleat that I’m using as center back and pinned the zipper in place on both sides with the top of the zipper tape even with the edge of the fabric. I always check to make sure I’m pinning it in so it will open correctly.

I’m using an invisible zipper foot to sew it onto the skirt, but you can also use a zipper foot. I prefer this foot because it has two channels for the zipper teeth, so I can sew the zipper in the same direction (from the top to the bottom) on both sides of the zipper. You’ll get a more even feed this way.

Now here’s the critical part to getting a nice invisible zipper. You HAVE to use a zipper foot at the edge in order to get close enough to the zipper edge and close up the seam. I have the fabric pulled right up next to the zipper and I’m going to sew just a few inches down to hide the bottom of the zipper in this pleat.

Now I have switched back to a regular foot (this one is actually teflon) and I’m sewing the center back seam starting across from the bottom of the zipper.

I used a press cloth to press the zipper flat and press the center back seam open. I’m cutting away the extra fabric that was originally going to be a pleat at the center back.

I cut straight across the pleat so I could center it over the zipper and pin the pleat.

Then sew it closed on each side of the zipper.

So here is the back with the invisible zipper and pleat under. No weird butt crack!

I measured the front waist to prepare the leather waistband. I cut the front waistband to fit the front skirt, and stitched the three leather waistband pieces together. I pressed them open and in the photo above I’m trimming away the seam allowances where I’m going to have another seam so it’s not so bulky.

Now I’m pinning, or clipping, the skirt and waistband together.

I stitched the skirt onto the waistband, using the stitching from the pleats as a guide.

Check to make sure it lines up perfectly at the zipper.

I’ve already sewn the bodice shell fabrics to the lining fabric at the waistline. This makes it easier to pin it onto the waistband. I matched the center and pinned out from there.

Then sew the bodice onto the waistband. It’s starting to look like a dress!

On to the skirt lining. I’ve serged the edges, and then stitched a small area at the back between the notches. I’m leaving the bottom open for a slit, and the top open for the zipper.

Then press the center back open. Even the parts that didn’t get sewn get 1/2” pressed back.

At the side seams I’m pinning along the suggested stitch line to check the fit before I sew. It seemed a little tight when I sat down, so I re-pinned to use the extra seam allowance I gave myself. Press the seams open, using a ham at the curve of the hip.

The pattern calls for an easing stitch at the front, so I stitched a line and pulled the bobbin thread until the front lining matched the rest of the dress. I also marked and stitched the back darts at this point. After pressing the darts I pinned the waistband lining onto the skirt and stitched them together.

Then I pressed the seam allowance up.

Time to pin the waistbands together. I check to make sure it’s going to turn back the correct way, and then pin/clip the rest of the way around the waistband. At the back I trimmed the waistband excess to an inch past the zipper. This will give me enough room for a snap.

Sew starting at one edge of the zipper, around the corners, the length of the waistband…

…around the other corners, and end right at the other side of the zipper.

Then snip away the bulk from the corners and used a point turner to push the corners out nice and square.

I pinned at the top and bottom of the waistband, folding the seams up into the waistband.

I stitched at 1/4” from the edge of the leather waistband to control the seams.

Now I’ve pinned the lining onto the zipper and I stitched it in place by hand.

I also stitched around the back slit, and stitched a 1/2” rolled hem in the lining.

To do the binding at the hem of the dress, I put it on a dress form so it hangs freely. You could just put it on a hanger if you don’t have a mannequin. Leave it there overnight to let the skirt relax as much as possible.

I’m pinning along the sweep of the dress a few inches above the edge. The spandex has stretched about a half-inch past the matte satin flatlining, so I’m pinning it to the flatlining to mark the amount of stretch.

I also want to shorten the length an inch, so I marked that on the satin and stitched the two fabrics together 1/2” above the mark.

I’m trimming away the extra fabric, because it needs to be cut at the finished length for the binding.

Here are my 2” bias strips for binding. I want one continuous piece so I’m going to join the ends. I want to keep the ends angled because they’re on the straight grain. The second piece comes over it at a 90 degree angle like this, and gets sewn with these points sticking out.

Press the seam open and then trim away the little points.

Now run the bias through a 1” binding maker. This satin is a little slippery in there, so it’s taking a little finagling.

Then I fold it almost in half and press again. I’m going to stitch in the ditch, so I want a fat 1/16” difference.

Now I’ve opened the binding back up and I’m pinning the shorter of the folded sides to the skirt hem. I’m being careful not to stretch the binding as I pin it.

When I sew it, I’m starting just below the actual sew line so I can cover that start point later. I’m sewing just to the right of the fold.

When I get back to the beginning, I cut the binding a little longer than I need and fold it back to where I want it to meet the start of the binding so there’s a clean edge there. Alternatively you could sew the two ends of the binding together.

I’m folding the binding over and using wonder clips to hold it in place. I love these because they look like Xmas lights 🙂

The binding was folded slightly longer in the back, so it should extend a little past the stitch line in the back. I’m going to stitch in the ditch so you don’t see the thread and it looks really clean.

After it’s sewn I see that I missed the binding in a few places. I’m going to hand-sew those little spots instead of re-stitching.

Now I need to put the snap at the back of the waistband. I have a kick press from gold star tool and it’s pretty awesome.

So I’ve already punched the holes for the snaps, and I’m using the dies for the kick press and a 24 ligne black enamel snap.

And the last thing is the little spider! It was a necklace, and I used dykes to cut off the hole for the chain and diamond sharpeners to sand down the sharp edge from that.

I’m hand-sewing the spider onto the yoke…

…And done!

Well, this dress ended up being much more complicated that I intended so thank you for hanging in there with me. I hope these tutorials inspire you to try new things in your own sewing. Break the rules, use weird fabric and trims, experiment, and f*ck it! The more mistakes you make the more you’re going to learn how to solve problems!