I Am Sewing A Fake Corset

It's a princess dress for Kate's birthday, in cotton candy colors. Here's my question: should I add those Tiny White Buttons for grommets? I think I should, but I'm lazy and want to leave the bodice as is.

It's hard to resume sewing after a break away from it. But I know that if I don't sew something, I'll take up, I dunno, knitting or something, just for something for my fingers to do and maybe never return to sewing. And now that Kate is turning five, I'm panicking at the thought that my children's Dressing Up Days might well be numbered. So I'd better sew costumes while they still want them. Especially when I have so much costume fabric in my stash that needs to be used.

This is a short-sleeved non-fleece costume, which is something I haven't made in a while. Usually, every costume is constructed like insulation for arctic temperatures because it's for Halloween and Halloween here is arctic. So this was a nice change. And to make it even more exciting, I set some rules for myself: 

• Must use only fabric in my stash
• but can go out to buy zipper
• and, while at the fabric store, can buy more yardage if it means not compromising on twirl factor (e.g. circular skirt rather than gathered skirt).
• Cannot be scratchy on the inside, especially since it isn't lined with fleece.
• Must finish in three days.

Kate is allowed to see it, of course. I've long given up with the Secret Gifts concept in our house. I teased her a bit, when I caught her spying on me. 

I asked her, "Hey, Kate, I like this dress. I think I'll wear it when I'm done making it."

"You can't!" Said Kate.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because it's too small for you! It's for me and I'm four years old and you're, like, seventeen!"

Bless you, Kate. Just for that, I will finish this dress in three days and not procrastinate by knitting or something. 

Just for the sake of sharing, here's the inside of that front bodice piece:

It's lined with jersey, which isn't scratchy (hurrah).

Here are the back pieces. The left piece is flipped to show what it's supposed to look like. The right piece has a row of pins, one of which stabbed me viciously in the foot while I was photographing the front pieces. 

 

Incidentally, I pin stuff along the stitching line, not at right angles to it. Someone has asked me this before and up to that point, I never thought about pin direction. This was how I was taught - pin parallel to the seam allowances, preferably IN the seam allowances (so the holes don't show on the garment) and never sew over pins. There are times -like in this garment - when I pin exactly on the stitching line itself, and pull out each pin as the presser foot approaches it. Of course, I was also taught to hand-baste everything, even paper patterns to fabric, but it's hard to be so assiduous all the time (or at all).

Later (like, not tomorrow or even next week), I'll show you some of the drafts for this dress. The sleeve, especially, is interesting. Provided it works, I mean. It's a semi-raglan puff (ugh) but with horizontal pleats. So it's a draped cut-in sleeve that's puff. I know, it sounds just awful. The draft looks like a Christmas tree.