Silk Charmeuse Dress Progress

From out of the chaos emerges a skirt!



Readers, the construction of my silk 40's dress is underway and let me say it's painstaking work.  Silk charmeuse shifts and ravels.  Otherwise I love it.

Would you believe I'm making this dress on my just-purchased Bernina 930?  I never expected to use it for this project, but then I started testing it and it handles the silk beautifully.





The hardest part so far has been the cutting.  Rather than sandwich the silk between sheets of tissue paper, I decided one layer was going to have to be sufficient (plus the pattern piece, which gets removed before I sew).  It worked fine.





I immediately stay the horizontal seams with my pre-stretched organza bias tape.  I'm staying curved seams (like armholes) with selvage I cut from my fabric.  The selvage is less stiff than the stretched organza but still discourages stretching.  It takes a bit of extra time to do this but not as much as you might think -- not much more than staystitching with plain thread.  Needles to say, I try not to handle the fabric more than I need to.

I was reminded by a reader that the vertical seams need to hang and stretch out, so they should not be stayed with the stretched organza strips at this point.  The skirt has been hanging for an entire day now and so far the seams look good -- no puckering or weirdness as far as I can tell.  Is there any reason to stay these at all?



I'm working on the bodice today.  It's full of darts (four on the front underlayer of the surplice and four on the back), so that should keep me busy for a while.   I still have to cut and interface my facings.

Seam edge with selvage sewn in the seam allowance.

Re the Bernina, can I share the message I sent the eBay seller I told you about on Wednesday?

I just wanted to let you know that I received the machine -- it's wonderful -- and I have left you positive feedback. If you should ever ship a sewing machine in the future, however, PLEASE wrap the accessories separately rather than leave them free in the case where they can get damaged or scratch the machine. There is a small crack in the plastic under the hand wheel (the right side, the only one that's plastic) you may not have been aware of, or it may have cracked in transit. It in no way impacts the mechanics of the machine and I'm fine with it. Sewing machines are fragile -- even ones in hard plastic cases, and really need to be double-boxed. Anyway, thanks again for the Bernina 930 -- truly a wonderful sewing machine. All best, Peter Lappin

I tried to handle this with kindness; no response yet.

Friends, it's time to get back to work.  I hope your silk projects are going well.  What's that?  You're not sewing a silk project?  Isn't it time you took the plunge?

Happy Friday, everybody!

This one's for Rosie.