28th July 2018

I don’t intend on starting the apron dress until I have completed the underdress, but I thought I’d share a picture of the beautiful fabric I’m going to be making it out of. It is a gorgeous deep red linen from Joann’s and cost $7.79 a yard in their 40% off sale. I bought three yards of it, though I really don’t think I’ll be using all of it, it’s better to be safe than sorry. 😉

Here it is pictured below, with the pattern I’ll be using from Honor Before Victory. Apologies for the low quality image, I am working in my basement and using my phone to take the pictures. 🙂

30th July 2018

Today I started the apron dress! I began drawing out the pattern in the basement, but ended up bringing it upstairs to finish, due to needing more space. Unfortunately, my dog Saga and my cat Soot decided to help me, which ended with a few wobbly lines and some extremely shoddy cutting. (Yes, I’m blaming the cat and dog. 😉 hehe.)

 

Here’s another picture of Soot helping. She was too cute.

Anyway, after drawing it all out it was time to cut! Unfortunately, I thought I had taken pictures of the pattern drawn on the linen and the cut out pieces, but apparently I didn’t. If you check out Honor Before Victory you will see on the pattern how everything was laid out. The pattern consisted of three tops and three gores, one of which was two halves that I needed to sew together. Below are pictures of the front and back of the two gore halves I sewed together. Again, I thought I had photos of them pinned together but I can’t find them.

 

The pattern goes together as panel-gore-panel-gore-panel-gore. I will be saving the above gore to sew onto the dress last. I pinned one of the gores to one of the top panels, and later on I’ll sew them together.

This is all I’ve got for now. I will upload more once the apron dress is all sewn together. Thanks for your interest!

31st July 2018

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve almost finished the apron dress! I finally figured out why my needle kept breaking on my sewing machine … I was using the wrong sized needle for the linen. Ever since I’ve switched to a 14/90 I haven’t snapped a needle, woohoo! Haha. Here’s a picture of my sewing machine in action. 😉

I sewed the panels and gores together, then pinned the apron dress to the mannequin over the top of the underdress to have a gander at what it all looks like together. I decided that I wanted the apron to be a bit shorter, so I pinned it up how high I wanted it, then hemmed it. As I was hemming, I rounded off the gores. I was playing around with the length of the dress in the first image (apron with two straps), whereas the second image is the length I settled on. I began making the straps, but they’re a bit too short so I will be changing them.

 

One issue I have run into, is the dress is much wider than I had intended. Next item on the list is figuring out how to tighten it without buggering up the two side panels. I’ll upload those pictures tomorrow, it’s nearly midnight right now and I am ready for bed. Hopefully next time I update this post, the apron dress and underdress will both be complete. For now, goodnight. 😀

5th August 2018

Hello! I took a couple days break from the apron dress but today I finally finished it. I bought 3.5 yards of ribbon (again, from Joann’s) for $4.99 a yard. Unfortunately I was a bit short, I need to buy half a yard more, but until then the apron dress is 99% complete!

As mentioned previously, the dress ended up being too wide – six inches too wide to be precise. I folded the dress in three inches on both side panels, sewed the dress up, but unfortunately I messed up so I had to pick it apart and sew it together again. Thankfully second time was the charm and the dress went together perfectly. Excitedly, I decided to give the outfit a test run. 😀 I really need to clean my mirror before I take selfies …

After sewing the dress together, I pinned the ribbon around the top and bottom of the dress (to hide my attrocious hemming – I must point out I can’t sew or cut in a straight line as you’ll see in later pictures). I sewed along the top of the ribbon and along the bottom to make sure the ribbon was on securely.

The ribbon added SO much to the apron dress, I’m really glad I added it in. I was put off by the price of ribbon – who knew it was so expensive? – but I’m glad I went with it.

After this it was time for the straps! I didn’t take any photos, but I did the straps differently. I cut two 21″ long, 2″ wide strips of red linen, folded them in half and sewed them down the middle and cut off the excess. I then folded the straps so the seam couldn’t be seen and hand-sewed them onto the dress under the little flap of the hem. The photo is of the back of the strap and with the apron dress turned inside out.  (And here’s a picture of my terrible sewing that I was telling you about earlier, hehe …) The two lines of black stitching is where I sewed the ribbon on.

And ta-dah! That’s it, the apron dress is complete! (Bar the tiny bit of ribbon I have to buy and sew on, but yeah.). Next up, I need to finish the underdress and buy some accessories (belt, brooches, beads, etc).

Thanks for following the post, I really appreciate it!