Today’s dress is sewn from the Colette Crepe pattern.
When my family and I were on our roadtrip in Oregon last summer we stopped at a roadside antique mall on the way to the Oregon coast where I bought old vintage hair rollers, a 50’s baby dress for Gigi and this cute vintage fabric:
I love the sewing challenges over at the Sew Weekly, and I wanted to use the fabric bought in Oregon for the orange week challenge. I didn’t get the dress done in time so I posted an undone photo of it on that site. The last time I sewed the Crepe in yellow gingham I didn’t like how the armhole and bodice facings on the original pattern were not only time consuming but they needed to be tacked down and had a tendency to flip outward. It also ended up being see through even though the fabric didn’t seem that thin. Here is a photo. There had to be a better way to sew this dress! I checked out Gerties Crepe Sew a Long but her method of innerlining the dress as well as adding facings on top of that was too complicated for putting together what is essentially a cotton housedress. At least I thought so.
I decided on a simple cotton lining for the bodice and skirt, thereby eliminating the facings, making the dress less see through,and also giving it more body.
Tips for adding a lining to the dress:
- Cut the lining 1/4 inch shorter at the neckline and the armholes. When you sew the lining to the main fabric, because the lining is a little smaller, it will not show on the outside.
- Sew the lining and bodice in this order.
- Sew the shoulder seams of the main bodice pieces, then the shoulder seams of the lining.
- Sew the lining to the main fabric at the neckline and armholes right sides together.
- Flip right sides out and iron the neckline and the armholes.
- Now open the piece and sew the side seams.
- It will be one long seam from the bottom of the lining up to the armhole and all the way to the bottom of the main fabric side seam.
I hope you understand this explanation!
I learned to sew linings this way in design school. If you would like to see a really good tutorial that explains this lining technique which eliminates any hand sewing or understitching, check out this blog post by the slapdash sewist. She is so cute!
I will be putting up my SewTell Linky Party again tomorrow and am inviting you to come back and post your sewing projects from your blogs! Thanks for reading this really long post!
Since these Collette patterns are so popular in the blogosphere I thought it would be a good idea to share the things I learned about making it better for myself with you.
Justine, this is a lovely version! Love it!
ooh i am a big fan of this! what fun fabric!
super fabric.
I really love your new crepe. I also like your thoughts on this and a previous post about not always needing to go for the couture techniques.
I too have been wondering about lining the crepe dress to eliminate the flippy facings. Interesting! Your crepe lOoks wonderful- I love the piping and fabric is totally seasonal. Looks great 🙂
A very flattering dress. Love that you can wear it with and without the brown belt.
That dress looks fantastic on you! What a great pattern! The fabric is amazing… What a find! Thanks so much for linking up today!
Cute dress!
Super cute! Turned out great.
love your dress, so pretty and looks so good on you
LOVE. I had to go search your archives after I was reading your flea market post and were wearing this dress! (How dare you not tell me what dress it was in that post! haha!!)
SOOO cute.
And THANK YOU for the lining tips! That makes so much sense and seems like it would be very “RTW”. (Also, I can hardly believe I just read a post that mentioned “Gertie” and didn’t slobber all over the place. You just made my day!)