Today, I put the permanent stitches into my daughters dress. I used my sewing machine and serger. Since I’d hand basted the seams yesterday, this process, even though I was dealing with super slippery fabric, was easy.
Which is one of the many reasons why I adore hand basting the seams first.
Pinning, basting and THEN machine sewing as my final step is the method I use. Why? Most sewing issues that I encounter are addressed and corrected while hand basting. Yes, hand basting adds time, but the results make it worth the extra effort.
Once the seams were machine sewn, my daughter tried on the dress. I wish you could see how excited she was. Her eyes sparkled and a big smile was on her pretty face. Getting her to stand still was a challenge, but she did it for a bit and I marked the adjustments to be made. After the modifications were marked, she floated about the room watching the folds of her dress flair out in a circle.
She reminded me of a glittering spinning toy top, remember those? She loved how the dress caught the light as she danced about the room.
Of course, she really didn’t want to take off the dress, but I told her I couldn’t complete if she was still wearing the outfit. There’s still plenty of work to complete, such as adding the horsehair braid to the hem and completing the adjustments that I marked on the dress.
Also, I’ll be shortening the dress so the tulle from the petticoat can be seen a bit more.