Monday, August 9, 2010

Ruffle Shirt Progress


I declared in my previous post that I was hoping to get view D from Simplicity 2599 completed today.


That didn't quite work out. I knew I wasn't going to finish it today when it took me 2 hours and 30 minutes to gather and attach the ruffles to the front of the shirt. It was just one of those slow sewing days.


But I've made pretty good progress. One of the things that slowed me down was that I wanted to step up the quality of this piece. No more leaving seams unfinished. I attempted a french seam for the very first time on the centre back seam, and it went really well.


By the way, my camera didn't really like to capture the true colour of this fabric. It's less dusty pink and more light coral or salmon pink, like in this next picture.


Unfortunately, I got carried away with sewing that I forgot to do the french seams on the rest of the straight seams, including the sides and shoulders. Deciding against picking them all, I opted to try sewing bias tape over the raw edges, another technique I've never tried before. I really like the effect, although i think the french seams are much prettier.


I even sewed the bias tape around the outer edge of the facing. This is actually a fairly easy technique that I will definitely be using again!


And here's the ruffles. Aren't they adorable! I love how it's turned out. I just need to do a bit of hand-stitching to fix the top ruffle a bit, since it's lifting up a bit, and the sides of the ruffles has flared out a bit more than I'd like it to.


All that's left to do is attach the sleeves from view A and B, finish those edges, and then hem the bottom. Oh, and a bit of hand sewing.

All and all, I'm proud of how this is coming along. I'm a bit of an instant gratification sewer, but now I'm starting to see the difference when you spend the time to make a quality piece of clothing. I think that's one of the things I like best about sewing. You're always learning, always improving.

And always making a mess. :)

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