Marfy 3358 Dress

This is one of the free patterns from the 2014 catalogue and is item 8 for my SWAP.  I haven't given it a final press following hemming.  It didn't seem that creased but the camera seems to have exaggerated the crumples left from having it sat in my lap whilst hemming it.   

This was originally planned as just a muslin.  The white top part is made of the scraps left from my recent white shirt.  I wanted a stretch woven which would mimic the navy ponte de roma knit I plan to use for the final garment but I didn't have enough for the skirt part so I made that from an old sheet.  However, it came out so nicely, and I liked it so much, that I went straight out that same day and bought a metre of the turquoise to make it a nice skirt so I could finish it as a wearable item.
The trim was lurking in the stash but I was short by one armhole's worth, which I only found out on Sunday so had to leave the dress with no trim on one armhole for a week until I could get into town to buy more trim.  Its just bog standard satin bias trim in black.

One strong recommendation I will make is not to be tempted to cut either the front, or the back on the fold unless you are very, very good at sewing a vee shaped seam accurately and neatly.  I'm not. As I discovered on this dress. 

My construction order was as follows:

1.  Princess seams on front and back bodice.  If I'd used it, the trim would have gone on at this point. 

2.  Attach back skirt pieces to back bodice pieces so there are two units, comprising a top and a skirt section each.  Do the same for the front.

3.  Attach trim to the back empire seam on each side, if using.

4.  Put in zipper in the back seam.  Invisible or centred, or even exposed.   I used a centred application here, but plan to use an exposed zipper on a future version.

 I did not trim the center back seam.  I couldn't work out how to do this neatly with a  zipper in there as well.  Though on the Great British Sewing Bee they should a lapped application that was pick stitched in on one side.  Which might work well as the trim would go over the lapped part.  However, I wasn't too sure whether I liked the look of the vertical line all the way down the back and the front  and chose to change the design a bit to suit me there.

5.  Now I sewed up the center front seam. Then I put the trim on the front.  I think if you were doing the trim right down the centre front seam, it would probably be easiest to put the empire line trim on first, then put the centre trim on.  As I wasn't doing that, I put my centre trim on first stopping at the empire line, then ran my empire line trim along the seamline, and folded it neatly into a vee at the center front, over the top of the CF trim, and sewed it neatly down.  All my trim was put on by hand.  I'd not trust myself to put trim on neatly and accurately by machine and I like doing that kind of hand sewing.

6.  Sewed the shoulder seams.

7.  Stay stitched the armholes and neckline at half an inch from the edge (I was using five eighths seams). 

8.  Sewed up side seams, carefully matching the trims.

9.  Neckline trim.  I put mine on the wrong way.. by which I mean I placed the right side of my trim to the wrong side of my garment, very carefully placing the fold of my bias tape's seam allowance  an eighth of an inch from the stay stitching and pinning carefully.  Sewed it on by machine, trimmed the seam allowances nice and narrow, pressed and understitched it so that the bias tape would turn to the outside and brought the tape to the outside and carefully pinned it in place then sewed it down by hand.

10.  Armhole trim, the same as for the neckline trim but the bias tape was sewn into a circle first so that it was neat.

11.  Hem.

12.  Wait for some sunshine so you can wear your lovely new dress ... I may need to wait a while for that though.  :)   Hence showing the garment on the dress form.  I already have the ponte knit version cut out but I forgot to buy the zipper yesterday, and I haven't bought the trim either, so sewing will need to wait until next weekend.     

The pattern suggests using grosgrain/petersham ribbon for the trim but the proper kind that goes around corners can be tricky to find.  I did source some on line and was going to order it but I really wanted to see the colours in the flesh to make sure they all went nicely together.  I auditioned plain cotton bias and satin bias against the ponte and either worked well.  As both are easier to source, I will go for those I think.