a shirred dress of my own

last time i showed you how to insert a shirred panel in a dress. i modified mccalls 5838 and made different versions for two of my daughters. i loved how these came out so much...

that i had to make one for myself! i really loved the silhouette of the bridesmaid dresses (new look 6776) i made earlier this summer and decided to use the same pattern in a different view for a shirred back summer dress. in gingham.

pockets!

i love this dress so much... words cannot express.

so after my first shirring experience, i made slight changes to this. i inserted 1/4" elastic at the top of the panel and at the bottom, out of the way of the waist SA. this worked out a little better than zig zagging in the skirt SA. i threaded the elastic through and secured it at the ends when i sewed down the sides of the panel (see my last post).

worked like a charm! in future dresses i would probably either shirr the entire back or insert a size zip. as is, it's a little bit of a struggle to get the dress on and off. but once it's on, it's completely comfortable!

i cut the slide thingies off a cami and made the straps adjustable

i basically just guessed how much of the back i wanted shirred, and went with about half the back width, centered obviously. after some test scraps, i determined that 5" of material would shirr down to about 3.25". from there it's a simple ratio math problem: take the desired finished width times 5 then divided by 3.25. then add about 1.25" in width for a 5/8" SA.

this worked for a medium weight material with a very light lining. if you do this, make up a small test on scraps first.

i love this dress so much i need to find a way to wear it into early fall.

jean jacket and boots? oh yeah, that'll do.

—lisa g.

inserting a shirred back panel

i know summer sewing is winding up, but i recently became addicted to shirring and wanted to show you how i incorporated it into dresses for two of my girls recently. it turns out, adding a shirred panel to the back of a dress is pretty easy.

here's a pictorial (with poor lighting... sorry. one day i'll remedy this situation.)

i have cut the panel to be shirred out of the shell and
lining, stitched and understitched at the top

sew rows of shirring at 1/4-1/2" intervals

stitch down each side, back stitching several times over each elastic

finish the raw edges and snip the extra threads

i have the rest of the bodice sewn, however you could
just have the back side panels by themselves

pin shirring to bodice shell, lining up the top edges

pull the lining over the shirred panel, pin and stitch

trim and snip the top corner

pull the shirred panel out, turning the bodice right side out

repeat on other side

attach the skirt and finish the waist seam allowance

sew narrow elastic to the skirt seam allowance

back stitch both ends to secure

no more wavy edge

hidden waist elastic

all done!

i should note, you can also make a casing at the lower edge of the shirred panel to feed elastic through instead of zig-zagging in the seam allowance. the kids dresses turned out great. so great that i decided i needed to make something similar for myself. i'll show all the finished dresses in another post because this one has enough pics as it is!

BIG NEWS!!!

okay, not really. but i just want to put this out there. i will be making a winter coat this year. i was chatting with my lovely sister who also sews and i mentioned that i need a new coat and really want to sew one this year. she mentioned that she also would like to make one and i said she and i can have a little sew-a-long to help each other through it. then i figured, why not take this public? i don't plan to offer expert advise (because i have none) but i thought if anyone else out there is sewing up a winter coat, we can all hold hands and do this together!

i don't plan to start this project until late-ish september and probably have a finished coat by mid-ish october. so if anyone is inspired to join in, i thought i'd put this out there plenty early. so there you have it. a winter coat not-quite-sew-a-long! feel free to spread the message on your own blogs, i completely welcome the advice and knowledge of those who have already ventured into coat-making territory!

—lisa g.