Little Girl's Special Occasion Dress: OOP Vogue 9072

This project was an honour and an absolute pleasure to sew and this little dress will be gifted.  

Looking at it here you can not see all the inner workings of this dress.  It has an underlined bodice with  full lining and netting stitched to one layer of the skirt lining.  Yup, it's designed to have two layers of skirt lining.  This is not a project for the faint of heart.  

This is a take-it-slow kind of project and I will admit that there was some self-imposed stress involved along the way.  The stress was all about changing the zipper installation.  Once a detour was planned everything worked out but it did take quite of bit of time to think about it and sort it out in my mind.  

I wanted to sew an invisible zipper in this dress because I didn't want any top stitching on the stunning medium weight woven silk fabric.  This is the kind of silk fabric that has been in the stash for years because I've been too scared to cut into it in the past.  If I had more time to work on this project and a steady hand, I would have considered sewing a hand picked zipper.  Regardless, I'm pleased with the look of the invisible zipper.   First, a 55 cm zipper was re-sized to the length needed.  

But most importantly, I had to reconsider the skirt and skirt lining construction to make it work and it's where I departed from the Vogue pattern instruction sheet.  After sewing the bodice and bodice lining the silk skirt was gathered and stitched to the silk bodice pieces.  The skirt back was left open for the invisible zipper installation.  And once done, the lower center back was stitched close.  

Now for the skirt lining and petticoat ruffle.  There were two lining pieces cut and gathered but it was too bulky so, I ripped it out and went with only one lining layer.  This would have worked out perfectly if I went with a regular lining fabric but I didn't because I really wanted to work with natural fiber fabrics as much as possible.  The lining fabrics are a woven cotton.  In the end I used one lining with the petticoat netting.  It was gathered and stitched to the lining bodice piece.  An opening in the back to be hand-stitched in place around the inside of the zipper.  First, I needed to attach the two skirts together and it was machine stitched together at the seam allowance around the waist.  

Once this detour was finished it was clear sailing.  The remaining opening around the center back at the zipper has hand-stitched closed before moving onto the skirt hems.  I cut the lining one inch shorter and stitched a one inch top-stitched hem.  The petticoat netting was the perfect length.  The silk skirt was then pressed and basted at a one inch hem and machine stitched with a blind hem foot.  

The last thing to take care of is diagonally trim the ends of the ribbon tie and pack it up for delivery.  

Project Details

Seams:  2.8 straight stitch

Seam finish:  Serged

Fabrics:  6.8 metres (2.2 metres of silk, 2.7 metres of cotton lining, 0.4 metres of underlining and 1.5 metres of netting).  There was another 1.5 metres of beaded tulle picked up for this project that I decided not to use in the end.  

Zipper:  55 cm invisible zipper cut down 28 cm

Pattern:  OOP Vogue 9072

Ribbon:  2 metres

Additional Tools and Supplies:  Flip chart paper, fine tip markers, paper scissors, iron, ironing board, cutting table, paper weights, pins, pin cushion, tailor's chalk, Merchant and Mills fabric scissors, Janome sewing machine, walking foot, blind hem foot, invisible zipper foot, regular zipper foot, Brother sewing machine, Janome serger, threads for the machine, silk thread for hand-basting, hand sewing needle, thread clippers, measuring tape, French curve, rulers, measuring gauge, seam ripper and lots of breaks.  

Happy Sewing!