When I read about the #sewfrosting challenge that Heather and Kelli are hosting (deadline is November 31!) I got really excited. It was just the excuse I needed to sew a particular fabric that I’ve had in my stash since 2016. In late August 2016, I went on an orchestra tour to South Korea. All our flights and such were paid for, I just had to play bass and have a GREAT time. While I was there, I convinced two other orchestra friends to come with me to this amazing fabric market in Busan (Busanjin Market). There were six full floors of fabric merchants, each with their own booth and loads of fabrics. The top floor was all custom clothing merchants, specializing in traditional Korean hanbok garments for the most part. It was priced appropriately for the amount of skill involved, which meant I couldn’t afford to have anything made for me (especially since we were only there for a week). But I did buy two pieces of 100% silk from one of the merchants using a hilarious combination of charades and holding up my Google Translate app on my phone. I got 8 metres of this amazing purple silk (not part of this blog post) that was only ~$3CAD/m, although only 22″ in width. The other piece I got was the golden yellow silk used in my project below. It was 44″ wide, and only ~$5CAD/m so I got 5 metres. I didn’t want to be limited by a fabric amount when it was something I couldn’t get more of, and especially because with silk I was picturing a big fancy garment and not just a shirt or something.
#sewfrosting was just the push I needed to finally plan out a project and cut into one of my silks. I made a full muslin of this dress ahead of time, since my fabric was so precious. I was originally planning to use the faux-wrap bodice of the By Hand London Flora, but when I muslined it it was so ill-fitting and I really tried my best but could not fix the problems to my satisfaction, and ended up scrapping it and going to something I already knew would fit – the bodice from the Deer & Doe Belladone. This bodice is slightly altered from their pattern, with the shoulders brought in to suit a sleeveless look. For the skirt, I knew I wanted to use something with a lot of volume but no gathers or excessive pleating, because the fabric would get overworked and I’d heard silk is hard to press/iron safely. When I saw V8980, I thought it would be a good fit. It has a version with a hi-lo hem that I was really into, and I just removed the ties from that view. The skirt already had a waistband, so I figured I could attach the bodice onto that safely.
When I made the muslin, I had to make a few alterations. Weirdly, even though I ALWAYS made size 12 in the Big Four patterns and it always fits great, I did size 12 in the skirt and it was nearly a full 4″ short of getting closed in the back! 4 INCHES. So I added strips of 1 7/8″ on each side (plus seam allowance to attach) of the center back skirt pieces and waistband on my muslin, and that solved the problem so I added that amount onto the paper pieces. I also ended up shortening the whole hem by 2″ all around, and shortening the bodice by 1″ at the bottom so it would fit with the dimensions of the waistband. I also knew I was going to line the bodice for the real dress, but didn’t bother to do that on the muslin.
I didn’t realize before I made the muslin, but this skirt is MORE than a full circle. It has a full circle in the front alone. This meant I had to play a bit of pattern tetris, and the two back pieces on my real dress didn’t get cut on the correct grainline otherwise they wouldn’t have fit. I also had to line the bodice with an ivory rayon lining instead of my self fabric, since there just wasn’t enough left. I’d read all kinds of horror stories about ironing or steaming silk, but I tested it on a scrap and had no issues with the low heat setting of my iron, so just went with that. Without a pressing cloth (I know I know, scold me all you wish). I made sure I had a new sharps needle before I started sewing as well. I tested fusible interfacing on a scrap, and it did not behave well at all so I ended up using some scrap beige cotton I had lying around to underline the waistband pieces for more structure/support.
Construction-wise, I French-seamed all of the skirt panels because silk frays like crazy and I didn’t want to have a serger edge inside, especially when it’s a hi-lo hem and would probably be visible from the front. After the skirt was attached together, I did the bodice and bodice lining darts, sewed them together at the shoulder seams, and then sewed the lining and bodice together at the neckline and armholes. I clipped the seam allowances and then pulled the back pieces through the shoulders to the front. I understitched the neck and arms as much as possible and pressed it all and it turned out well! I then basted the bottom and center back edges together because I couldn’t figure out a way to have a waistband facing AND have the lining on the bodice finish the zipper nicely. So I went with the waistband facing. I then attached the waistband and waistband facing to the bottom edge of the bodice at the same time. The skirt got sewn to the waistband, and then I hand-sewed the facing down inside. Then, I ended up serging the full edge of both sides at the center back. I had inexplicable waistband dimensional issues AGAIN despite adding the extra bits on, so I had to go down to a 1/4″ seam allowance at the waist and then grade back out to the 5/8″ along the bodice, which worked fine although was stressful at the time. I also used a regular zipper instead of invisible, because I wasn’t sure an invisible zipper would be able to stand up to the weight of the skirt and the bulk of the waistband.
The hem took forever. It was 7.9m (around 8 1/2 yards) long. And it’s basically a circle skirt on steroids. I didn’t want to deal with that, and I thought it would be a good chance to try out hemming with horsehair braid. I bought 10m in case I did something strange, and it ended up being magical and lovely. The hem still took a long time, but the frustration level was practically nonexistent. I love how it looks on this dress and the way the skirt falls! It gives it such a nice structure. It makes me want to hem all circle skirts this way, although I don’t really think it would look great on everything. But it really was so easy for this situation, and I highly recommend giving it a shot!
And that’s a whole lot of frosting, in my opinion! What’s more decadent than a floor length shiny golden silk gown?! Now, who’s going to invite me to a gala or ball?
