Seamstrissmiss: June 2009

This project is done on the back zipper of a skirt, but works the same way for any seam with a zipper in it...

Pinch your seam to fit. Pin your pinch. Take off the garment and mark how much you took in on each side of the seam/zipper with a pin.

This particular garment has a lining. Both material and lining will need to be released from the zipper.

This garment also has a seam binding to cover the raw edge at the top of the skirt. Use a seam ripper to release the binding from the top of the waist. Remove the hook and eye as well.

Rip the stitches that hold the material and the lining to the zipper to free both sides of the zipper from both sides of the seam. Notice how the seam binding is removed only enough to allow taking in the seam to desired fitting.

View of the zipper released from between the material and lining.

Fold in the edges of the seam to your marked area. Make sure it is even for both sides.

Pin your alteration in place and hand-stitch both sides of the zipper back in between the material and lining on each side. Sew the seam binding back in place at the top. Note that since you took in the seams, the binding will be a little long now. Clip the edge with scissors. Fold the edge to the inside of the garment and secure with a few stitches. Sew the hook and eye back on and you're done!

I bought my pattern from Walmart for $9! It's not the pattern, but usually the material you choose that makes a garment what you want it to be. The center style is what I went with, and then made some revisions to the pattern.

I bought my fabric from Jackman in St. Louis and from Gail K in Atlanta. The main dress is made of a light cream/ivory satin layered under a sort of dotted lace.

Here are the pieces for the underside of the waist and skirt. I liked how this pattern didn't have a seam around the waist.

I turned the straight neckline into a curved sweetheart neckline. Also, the gathers under the bust are a nice detail.

The not-yet finished dress portion. I had to do a lot of taking in the side seams to fit my small waist, something I have to do on most of my clothes. Battling with this part took a long time and many frustrations ;)

I bought a beautiful lace from Gail K for the train and used the remnants for the hem ornamentation. Hand-sewing takes a lot of patience.

Here's what the bolt of the train lace overlay looks like before it was in train form. It was so huge I had to use the wall and a projector to lay it out properly. Worked pretty well!

I used the Audrey Hepburn "Sabrina" train patterning from a previous post on here to lay this out, but still it wasn't in great detail so I felt like I was doing a lot of it blindly. The lace gathers but not the satin underneath to avoid bulk under the belt that I would sew on over the top of the train later.

Working in my tiny seamstress corner. PS if you have the money for a dress form , GET ONE. They are super handy. Mine was $99 from Hancock. Making my wedding dress would have been impossible without it.

Here's the nearly finished dress, front! I love it.

Full dress front with the train pinned on.

Pinning on what I call the dust ruffle, to help protect the lace at the edge of the train since it was designed to drag on the ground.

The train from the back, pinned on before I designed the belt for the top of it which would hook on to the back of the dress.

I tacked the lace overlay to the seam between the ruffle and the satin to keep it even all the way around. So pretty! I was so excited to find this lace. It's absolutely perfect.

Grace and Audrey were definitely my inspirations for this gown. Very vintage, very different very lovely and very me :) ... and very tedious! It took me about 5-6 months to complete the entire project, and probably about $800 for fabric, dress forms, shoes,
cleaning/pressing, and accessories. Well, well worth it!

Wedding Day: