Day Two of Sewalong!

Have you purchased your pattern yet? It is still on sale for 15% off HERE: https://www.etsy.com/listing/160049272/sewalong-shirt-dress-pants-girls-pattern I gotta give a shout-out to Carissa, the other face behind Ellie Inspired, for taking these wonderful step-by-step pictures for us! Thank you!! Are you ready to get started?? This is going to be fun.

SECOND STEP: Constructing the Bodice and Collar

The first thing you are going to do is transfer that placement line for the ruffles from the front bodice pattern piece onto the two front bodice pieces. This will help you keep them nice and straight.

Follow steps two and three to prepare the ruffle. We are using a pre-pleated trim in this example so the edge is already finished for us.

You are going to stitch it to each bodice piece, following step #4. Remember, you put it on wrong side facing up first, and then flip it so the right side shows and top-stitch it in place. The below picture shows it all finished.

Follow step #5 so that the ruffle will lay nicely at the neckline and at the bottom as you are adding other pieces to the garment.

(In testing, some people asked me why the buttonholes needed to be added after the ruffle was stitched on because it would be easier to do them first. It would be easier, but the lining has to be added after the ruffle is done and before buttonholes are stitched, so it won't work in that order. However....don't worry about it - it's really pretty easy to do it after the ruffle is there! Just wanted to explain that...in case you also were wondering if you could do it in that order.) :)

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Now it's time to stitch the bodice pieces together. You will be repeating what you do with your fashion fabric with the lining pieces also.

Follow steps #1-3 on page 5 to construct the bodice. In our examples below, the navy fabric is the outer fashion fabric and the pink chevron is the lining.

Step #4 talks about reinforcing the future button placket with light-weight interfacing. I know not everyone does this but I would highly recommend it. It gives a nice crisp button placket and reinforces the holes. I just use the light-weight fusible interfacing so I can iron it on - no stitching. I know a lot of people will just cut a little scrap and put it behind the buttonhole instead of reinforcing the whole placket. With this dress, I kind of like the extra support of doing the whole placket, though.

You can also add interfacing to the collar pieces if you are using a light-weight material for the dress. Iron it on the wrong side of one collar piece just as before.

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For the collar, you can add piping, rick-rack, lace, or ruffles to the edges if you would like to. It is entirely optional and up to you. I do give some instructions on how to add piping. For the example below, we used that same pre-pleated ruffle trim. You will attach any of the trims in the exact same way. Follow steps #1-2 for stitching the collar pieces together.

After you stitch it together along the outer curve, as shown in the picture above, you are going to turn it right side and press it well. I think top-stitching around the outer edge is nice to do here so that everything has a nice, crisp edge to it.

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Follow step #3 on page 6 to attach the collar to the bodice. The center of the collar and the center of the back bodice should match. The ends of the collar should end about 3/4” from the center edge of each front bodice to allow the front to overlap later for buttoning.

After step 3, you may find it helpful to machine-baste the collar onto the bodice so you don't have to keep the pins there holding the collar in place.

And that's it for today! Ignore the lining peeking out in the picture above. We haven't stitched it on yet - tomorrow we will do that! But I wanted to show you what your front and back bodice pieces should look like now with the collar added. Tomorrow, we will add the lining and the sleeves, and I will also let you jump ahead to doing buttonholes if you want to! :)

See you tomorrow!