Each year around this time, I get to work making a festive Christmas dress for my youngest niece’s birthday. Her birthday falls at the very beginning of December, so the timing is just right. This year, I thought I’d document the construction of the dress for all the ladies who’ve made their way here through sewing photos I’ve posted on the Substack app.
I am a thrifty seamstress, so I’m always looking for ways to sew without forking over inordinate amounts of money on fabric. One of my favorite fabric sources is Wholesale Fabric Direct. This online warehouse offer extremely low prices on a lot of fabric basics.
Last year, I bought some lovely red floral jacquard and made myself a Christmas dress. I always buy several yards extra. Many years of sewing and many sewing mishaps have taught me that this is a wise practice for those “just in case” scenarios.
After finishing my own dress last year, I stored away the remainder until early this month when I pulled it out and decided it would make a little, soon-to-be seven-year-old, quite happy.
I wanted to go all out on this dress, it being birthday month and Christmas and all, so I decided to fully line it as well. It just so happened that I had picked up a length of lining fabric at a thrift store a few years back which just matched the color. It didn’t hurt that there was a fun swirly print on it too. I have come to the conclusion, that I love the look of contrasting lining on garments because it’s like a special and fun gift for the wearers of the garment all to themselves. And though this wasn’t exactly contrasting, it was more fun than a solid color.
So, let’s begin. I started by folding the pleat lines on the skirt, pining them in place and basting over them a quarter inch from the raw edge. The pleats in combination with this fabric gave the skirt lots of floof and bounce without any crinoline or extra fuss.
Then onwards to the bodice sans sleeves, followed by sewing that portion to the skirt.
Next came the bishop sleeves, bound with a narrow band of fabric that had to be hand sewn in place. As you can see, the fabric unravels like the dickens so it’s always fun keeping ahead of that.
This last photo above is slightly out of order because I had to create the lining prior to sewing on the sleeve band, but you get the picture. The lining was essentially like sewing a second dress with the exception of the skirt. For simplicity’s sake, I just gathered the skirt rather than repeating all those pleats. Here is the finished lining.
At this point, I sewed the lining to the garment at the neckline, right sides together, and that handily finished the neck seam.
And now for the zipper! I almost always use invisible zippers any more as I prefer the look to anything else. They can be a bit challenging. To make my life easier, I hand baste one side of the zipper onto the garment (leaving the lining free for now), sew the seam, then hand baste the second side of the zipper onto the garment and sew that last. After that, I sew up the remainder of the skirt seam. Then, I sew the lining half way up the skirt to where it would meet the zipper if it were attached, then fold the raw edges in and pin the lining down away from the zipper teeth. Then I stitch the lining to the zipper tape by hand.
For the hem, I sewed some white lace edging to the right side of the seam edge, folded that under towards the inside of the garment, pressed it and then sewed the hem it created by hand. Voile! Done.
I couldn’t resist whipping up a little matching doll dress from scraps, wrapped everything up, and presented it to her last week when we drove up north for Thanksgiving with the family! As you can see from the photo below, I think she likes it.
Hope you had as much fun reading about my sewing project as I did making it!
That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…
P.S. I will return to more serious essays next week, but I hope to sprinkle these sewing “show and tells” liberally throughout my writing path. I also hope to put out an extra Christmas Baking edition this month where I share the best gluten free baking recipes I’ve found to date. All this, of course, will take a good deal of time, so I would appreciate it if you’d consider upgrading your subscription from free to paid. This would free up more time for writing and provide the resources necessary to get my novels, The Pursuit of Elizabeth Millhouse and 27 in print. Thanks for your consideration, and I hope you have a great week.
That smile says it all!