My 2013 Christmas Dress

Before I show you the finished outfit, I'm going to talk about the rest of the construction process.  Feel free to skip to the bottom!!!

The next step after making the bodice was to put on the trim pieces.  On the Blue Roses dress, these were edged in piping, so I thought I'd do the same thing with this dress, but in gold.  So I bought some gold satin to turn into bias.  What an experience that was!  Even drawing the diagonal lines on it to cut out the strips was a nightmare, so I gave up on that idea.  I could see it taking waaaaaaay to much time.  So I crossed all my fingers and toes and headed to Spotlight in the hope they'd have some gold bias.

THEY HAD TWO TYPES!!!!  Gold satin and gold lurex!  After putting both with the shoes, I put a post on my Facebook page to see what people preferred, and the unanimous vote was the lurex (on the right of the photo), which is exactly what I thought too!

So I tried to make piping from it... it shifted around and no matter how slow the machine went, how careful I was, or how much I pinned it, this happened:

I'm surprised I have any hair left after trying to make this...

So I gave up on that idea, and decided to use the bias as bias, and I trimmed down the seam allowance on the top side of the trim piece, and wrapped the bias around it.  Then I attached these pieces to the bodice!

Then I had to pleat the skirt.  This took FOREVER!!!  I had a pleat pattern I wanted to follow from a lovely vintage shirtwaist dress in my collection.  It looks like this:

The pleats are in groups of four, with a little more than an inch in between the groups

I had two lengths of fabric to pleat, both a little over 2 metres, one for the front and one for the back.  It took several attempts to get it right.  I'd pleat up half a side, measure it, it would be too long (or too short) so I'd have to pull the pins out, iron it flat, and start again.  Thankfully I was doing this in front of the TV watching Call the Midwife, so really it wasn't that bad!

Eventually I got it right, and I attached the pieces together and attached it to the bodice.  Then I hand picked the zipper, because I figured it would be easier to do that with all the layers.  And here is the finished outfit!

I swear, all that work with the pleating was TOTALLY WORTH IT!

 

 

Crazy Christmas shoes (actually called Santa Baby) by Irregular Choice

(sadly these are now sold out worldwide)

 

Amazing poinsettia fascinator by GGs Pinup Couture

Gail also is on Facebook and Instagram, and sells on Etsy

Seriously worth checking out her work - its AHHHMAZING!

I am 100% sure that this is my best Christmas outfit so far, and its setting the bar pretty high for next year!  Do you dress in the Christmas theme at this time of year, or on Christmas day - or is it just me?

Beccie
xxx