Black Eyelet Babydoll

Happened into a Walmart one day right after they had obviously restocked their mill end precuts, and so was able to buy a lovely "3 yards for $8" piece of black cotton double border eyelet.  I knew from the start that I wanted to use it for a Fake Burda 6401, and that conviction grew even more sure after I made the Fake McCall's 8197 modifications to the basic Fake Burda 6401 pattern.

The main thing that kept me from actually making this dress?  The fact that there was white thread in the serger, and I had a lot of other things I wanted to sew that would work much better with white serger thread than with black serger thread.  However!  I finally got to a point where I felt like I was through with those projects--and wasn't thinking of more that I wanted to make immediately--so I finally changed the serger thread.  We won't discuss how long ago that was; we shall just rejoice that it happened.

And so I sewed the eyelet into the intended dress

No, wait, it gets better.

First, I want to discuss the sleeves.  Even though I cut the bodice from the unembroidered parts of the fabric, this fabric is fairly fine, so I wanted to fully self-line the bodice. (I did apply interfacing to the neckline of the lining pieces.  I am not falling prey to the false pretense of the real McCall's 8157, which does not involve interfacing and so leaves so many inexperienced sewing people with unwearably large necklines, because following the directions means there is no interfacing to stabilize all those curves, and they don't understand that means everything will stretch in all directions.  What, no, I didn't stay stitch, who do you think I am?)  And once I decided to fully line the bodice, I decided I wanted to hide the sleeve cap seam allowances inside that lining, but, since it's eyelet, I did not want to line the sleeves.

I found this blog post that pointed me in a helpful direction.  However, since I did mot have a center back opening or seam, I could not follow it exactly.  I had the idea that I could burrito it!

I could not burrito it.  I got the lining and shell together OK, but the sleeve cap was crumpling and crinkling and getting sewn into the seam in places where it absolutely should not be sew into the seam.

So.

I picked the stitches and tried doing it the way I used to do all-in-one facings, before I learned about burritoing.  That worked!  And then I finished things the way the other blog instructed.

It looks a bit off to me because I usually put the sleeve cap seam allowances into the sleeve, but it's fine.

I tried taking a picture of the inside of the bodice around sleeve seam, to show the clean lining and the french seam under the sleeve.  This picture does show that, just...not very well.

There is definitely embroidery on the sleeves.

I cut the bodice on grain, but had to cut all the embroidered parts cross grain, because that's how it was oriented. It shouldn't be a problem on the sleeves, since they're gathered into bands that were also cut on the grain.

It was also weird not to need to--or be able to--finish the hem.  I tacked the seam allowances down so I'd feel like I was doing something.

Of course I added pockets, which meant I couldn't do french seams on the skirt.  That's why I changed the serger thread.

Given how much I have worn this dress over the last few years, I expect I will wear this eyelet dress often, too.

However, that older dress can't do...this

 

I may or may not wear a slip with this.  We'll see. (I would have to make this hypothetical slip.)  I don't intend to stand in front of any dramatic windows like this in the presence of strangers, so maybe not.