I got a serger!

I ended up ordering the Brother 1034D from amazon, and shipped it to Switzerland (the $ is so cheap right now and it was still cheaper than getting a cheap one here..), and now I have a serger! Lucky for me I can start serging right away, we had the right transformer in the garage :) ALthough I still need to get thread…

Haha, at first I was so scared to press the pedal all the way down, because the light started to ficker when I applied just a bit of pressure. So I called my dad (scared the machine would break if I pressed the pedal down further), and after he got tired of me putting my foot on the pedal and then stopping and saying “no, I can’t do it!” he just pressed it down. And everything is fine. haha…

I have to admit, I don’t know what those cone-y things are (next to the machine in the picture), there are four of them so I suppose it has something to do with the spools? This is exciting! I have a machine I need to learn how to work!

I finally made the pattern for the skirt for the mint dress, and marked the pieces on the fabric. It was hard figuring out how to fit all of the pieces (with the annoying shape of the back pieces, the hem facing, and me wanting to sew the bodice pieces doubled up because of the sheerness):

(played around with the contrast so you can see the pieces marked, that’s not really what the color looks like!)

I’m off to cut!

Mint Dress – Design

I feel like tie-backed dresses have been following me! First of all, I’ve been thinking of sewing another one of these:

(another dress I made for my Maturaarbeit last year, it’s not exactly “tied”, but it has that shape too)

And then I found these online yesterday:

1. from lookbook.nu (the look has been deleted… or at least that’s what the site tells me) 2. from burdastyle user cationdesigns

So that’s what the back of the dress will be, tied (see sketch below). I had a hard time deciding what I wanted the front to look like:

But after going through my 40s/50s/60s inspirations folder, I settled on this picture for inspiration:

(via Gertie’s Blog)

A sweetheart neckline! I’ve been wanting to make one for a while, so why not now? I will make straps though.

So I spent some time today drafting the pattern for the front. From what I can tell there’s a center front seam, a side bust dart, and two center bust darts. Not sure if there is a bust dart coming from the bottom, but I drafted a pattern without one:

the cut out piece is the pattern I used for the floral dress, slightly altered to fit this design. The bottom one is the next step where I pivoted the bust dart to the center front seam. I then added another fold to the center front (just by holding it up to my body and pinching the tissue paper):

(ignore the top dart (drawing mistake), just the two along the center front seam and the side seam will be there)

I’ll do the back bodice piece tomorrow and sew a muslin too :)

The Floral “Paris” Dress – WIP II

Yesterday and today (tuesday and wednesday) I…

• cut the underskirt
• sewed the underskirt side-seams (french seams! I love them, so neat!)

• adjusted the waistline (my waist is about an inch higher up compared to an “average body”)
• gathered the underskirt and skirt

• sewed the straps and side-seams of the bodice, and zigzagged those seams
• cut, zigzagged and “fusible-interfaced” the facings
• attached the facings to armholes and neckline
• understitched the facings

• catch-stitched the armhole facings by hand

So now I don’t have that much left to do! Maybe I’ll finish tomorrow :) Pinned the skirt and bodice to my dress-form to see what it will look like:

To do:

1. catch-stitch neckline facing by hand
2. cut both skirts open along the back (for zipper)
3. attach skirt and underskirt to bodice (make sure to sew center back folds of bodice in place)
4. finish that seam
5. add waiststay
6. prepare skirt for zipper: 1. Sew up the skirt till where zipper comes in; 2. Sew underskirt to skirt like here (use iron to press it flat).
7. Insert hand picked zipper

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