Chintz Print Pullover Dress

My pedantry won't call it 'chintz' with no qualifiers, because it's a lightweight twill instead of glazed.  It's also--again, being pedantic--very much the English Granny kind of chintz print, and not the traditional Indian style.

Anyway.

 

 This is a lot like the mixed print dresses I've been making, just...not mixed print.

I do like mixing prints, but, most of the time, it's also a necessity, because I just don't have enough of a single print to make an entire dress.  This time was unusual, because I had more than enough of this single fabric to make a dress like this.  I  thought it might be fun to have all of the details but none of the stark contrasts, for once.

The big difference is how I did the skirt--not only was there no lower ruffle planned from the start, because, again, I had enough fabric to cut the skirt the full 24" long, no need to add the ruffle for more length (and also, this fabric is 60" wide, so using it full-width on both sides makes a very full skirt), but I also pleated the fabric down to the waist width.  I almost never pleat things, because I have fun gathering things by zipping over them with the ruffler.  This fabric and the ruffler, however, did not get along, so pleating it is.  Well, sure, I could have gathered it with a running stitch, or zigzagging over waxed thread, like a normal person.  But.  I didn't wanna.

 

A smaller difference was that, instead of using grommets for the lacing holes, I tried using the buttonholer eyelet cam.  It...technically...worked.  I'm curious to see which approach is more durable. 

The hem roller worked better with this fabric than the ruffler did, but I still had to pick out some improperly-rolled sections and fold by hand to re-stitch.  You can see some of the back tacking here.  It's fine.

 

I still have dark brown thread in the serger--since I was using the full-width of the fabric, I left the selveges alone and only (in the skirt) serged the pocket bags, individually, before attaching them.

 

Sleeve bands were attached the same as always.  You can see, inside this sleeve, just how far the outside top stitching ended up from the inside band attachment seam.  That's actually why I like doing the bands this way: things may not align perfectly, but that mismatch is only visible inside, and no hand stitching needed

I'm getting a little more familiar with the geometries needed to sew seams in the bias tape at the back neckline.  I made some extra effort to get that seam in an all-black area, too.

I feel a lot more confident in pressing the curved  outer edge of the visible facings now that I've started cutting the corresponding interfacing edge 5/8" in, then pressing the facing's edge around the interfacing's edge.  No need to measure while pressing!

I cut the skirt at 24" because that's the length noted on my pattern, and it turned out that the print repeat is right around 24", too.  Amusing coincidence.