Finished Project: A bodice NOT cut on 'centre fold'.

#selfie :P

I have always cut my 'front bodice' pieces on the 'centre fold' as instructed by the pattern, and so far have not had any issues with prints landing on awkward places. Example...

Source: Dave Hughes Tweet:

Carrie Bickmore got flack for wearing this dress on the @theprojecttv last night. 

Do you see something rude? pic.twitter.com/el630J0e

.... I'm thinking the designer intended it that way cos I doubt they would miss *that*! I also see a crab and an alien.

Gorgeous dress.

When I started cutting out the bodice for my 'Christmas Party' dress, I had my front bodice on the centre fold but could not find a flower arrangement I was happy with. The flowers on this fabric vary from small to large and are scattered about. 

I didn't want to end up with a front bodice with mostly 'white' and little flowers, or flowers smack bang on my lady lumps so I did something different - I didn't cut on the centre fold!

The collage below shows:

• Pic 1 - My fabric
• Pic 2 - Option 1 if cut on centre fold - not enough big roses, bit meh

• Pic 3 - Option 2 if cut on centre fold - three big roses... but something still not right
• Pic 4 - Bodice if cut away from centre fold. Me likey.

To do this, I had to trace out another pattern piece as if it were the actual front bodice, use the 'centre' of the bodice as the grainline, un-fold the fabric and measure-measure-measure my grainline.

It is trickier than cutting on the fold, but I am far happier with how the flowers are arranged on the front bodice now. I deliberately placed the large rose up on the chest/shoulder so it looks like a corsage.

I didn't have enough fabric to play around with the pattern placement for the back bodice because the remainder was for my gathered skirt so I had to make do with the fabric left over from the front bodice.

Doesn't look too bad though.

The pattern I used for this dress is old faithful M5845 (oop). I've made this bodice many times with a circle skirt, wiggle skirt and it's original skirt for myself, but never a full gathered skirt.

I did make a version with a full gathered skirt once, but that dress was for my sister and I always envied her version, so I decided to make myself one too!

Isn't my sister gorgeous! Dress blogged here. 

I used the same size pattern pieces, except I made an adjustment to the shoulder line. I took off 1cm.

I followed this tutorial by Anna (::Paunnet::).

The M5845 bodice is dart central. A total of 16 darts on shell and lining. I used this tutorial  by Rochelle (Lucky Lucille) to trace my darts the easy way.

It was a bit hard to do this technique on the lining because the chalk didn't stay on the polyester, but on cotton, it's perfect. My darts have never been so straight!

The fabric I used for the shell of the dress is a cotton sateen I bought from Spotlight. You know by now how much I love florals, so I just had to have this.

The lining is red sunsilky polyester.

I decided to line the bodice only. I think I'm going to skip the skirt lining from now on unless it's a fitted skirt.

Inside the bodice lining...

I handpicked the zipper, french seamed the side skirt seams...

...lined the bodice, added a white grosgrain ribbon waist-stay,
 hand sewed the hem (yes!! I hand sewed 2 meters of hem, took 1 hour).

Summary: Floral 'corsage' dress.

Pattern: M5845 bodice, self drafted full gathered skirt

Size: Size 6 bust, 8 waist

Fabric: 1.5m cotton sateen (Spotlight), 70cm sunsilky lining (red)

Notions: Dress zipper 16" (hot red), Gutermann thread (800, 156), 1m grosgrain ribbon (white), bikini hook (1)

Time: 8-10 hours over 3 days, didn't really keep track, only remember that the bodice was finished in record time of 3.5 hours
Cost: Fabric $25; Lining $10, Zipper $2; Grosgrain ribbon $2; Bikini Hook 50c

Techniques used: 

• French seam
• Darts
• Lined bodice
• Gathering
• Handpicked zip
• Blind catch stitch on the hem 

Pattern Modification/Adjustments:

• Shoulder line adjustment
• Side seam allowance 2cm
• Raised back by 5cm
• Lowered front neckline by 2cm

I'm so happy with how the bodice turned out, my favorite feature of the dress is the huge 'corsage'.

I read somewhere that the only reason the pattern companies design the pattern piece to be cut on the centre fold is so they can save paper (and money). 

If I ever work with fabric that has scattered prints everywhere, I will use this technique to cut out the pattern pieces so I can control where the prints end up. 

What about you guys, do you ever not cut on the fold? 

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Goodbye invisible zippers & hello handpicking!

For the first time in a long time, my internet was capped for a few days! Soooo 2001...

I was devastated, I couldn't watch new Homeland, Revenge or Gossip Girl; download Justin Bieber's song (don't laugh but I really like the song 'Beauty and a Beat' after hearing it on X Factor Au) or reply to your comments on my last post about zippers, accidentally cutting my hair and not oiling my machine.

My sewing teacher oiled my machine for me last week, and when reading my manual to see where to oil, it said "make sure to oil the machine once a week if you use it more than an hour a day"... hrm. Thoughts?

Re my paranoia about cutting of my hair and measuring tape, I'm glad you guys can relate to my fear of chopping things off accidentally. I always make sure I am at my most alert when I am cutting my seam allowances and clipping my curves. And when using my rotary cutter :) 

A lot of you guys commented and said that invisible zippers are not as strong as dress zippers but most tend to use invisible zippers. I'm the same, I like invisible zippers because they are "easier" (read: no hand sewing) to install, give a cleaner finish and hand sewing can be a ball breaker sometimes. But there's no denying they are not as strong as the old dress zipper.

I still remember last year when I wore my handmade 'cobalt' skirt to a NYE party and halfway through the festivities, my invisible zipper broke! Luckily it was still holding together at the waistband so my skirt didn't fall down. In public. OMG :(

A week later when I wore my 'burnt orange' dress out on the weekend, I packed spare clothes in my handbag incase I had a wardrobe malfunction. Mind you, the zipper on the dress was an exposed metal zipper, but I was so traumatised by what had happened on NYE, it made me question how durable my handmade garments were. It took months for me to trust my sewing again. 

Then the zipper tab broke off my 'Squiggle' dress. FFS.

I then realised it wasn't my sewing, it was those stupid Birch invisible zippers! I even had one break on me during installation. 

People have told me to use YKK zippers as they are most durable and used on most RTW clothing. So far I have had no luck finding these YKK zippers :(

Sewaholic and Cation Designs were the first blogs I followed religiously when I started reading sewing blogs. 

I am obsessed with Tasia's Simplicity 3965 dresses and love the handpicked zip on her picnic dress. 

When stalking Cindy's blog archive and drooling over her M5845 and NL6723 dresses, I always stop to admire the handpicked zip on the Hippo dress.

Now for some handpicked zipper p o r n...

Tasia's 'Picnic' dress.
(source)

Cindy's 'Hooray for Hippos' dress.
(source)

Gertie's 'Lemon Tree' dress.
(source)

So beautiful <3

I tried my first handpicked zipper when making my Mad Men dress using Tasia's very awesome tutorial.
It turned out OK for my first try. I tried it a few more times on my M6331 strapless dresses (here & here) and on one of my skirts and my 'meh' lace dress the other week.

Most recently, I handpicked a zipper on this beautiful floral dress...

Practice makes perfect, I've finally got it right. My stitches are more even and straight. Woo hoo prickstitch!

I'm so confident with my skills that I've offered to repair the zipper on my cousin's handmade dress from Paris! Only concern is my 'stitches' aren't as visible (therefore aren't as strong?) as Tasia, Cindy and Gertie's... something I'll work on next time.

I am so in love with the little 'dots' of thread peeking through the fabric. Ahh smitten.

It is much easier to control the zipper when handpicking, and easier to unpick too. I had to re-do the zipper on this dress and take it in an inch on each side - unpicking the prickstitch (on the zipper tape side) was sooo much easier than unpicking tiny stitches next to the teeth of an invisible zipper.

From now on I will handpick (most of) my zippers because it makes the dress extra special to me, hand sewing can be therapeutic, and dress zippers seem to be stronger than invisible ones.

Oh, and dress zippers are much cheaper too, and since I'll only be buying one zipper from now on, I'll be saving so much $$. More money to spend on fabric!

So ladies, have you handpicked a zipper?

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