As promised! I'm going to split this up into multiple parts because there are a LOT of photos. I want you to be able to clearly see every step of the process. I also want you to understand why I make some of the choices that I make. This is, more or less, the way I put together all of my dresses in this style. And I use this dress pattern a lot. This particular dress is going to be for a 10th century British Isles over-dress. So it's a little looser cut, a little shorter, and the sleeves are a little bigger and also a little shorter. It's really, really important for me to note that I always fully construct my dresses, and then hand finish all the seams afterwards (except the shoulder seams--those I do during construction). Not everyone does it this way, and you definitely don't have to! You can choose to finish your seams differently, and that might affect your order of construction. You have to do what works for you. I'm going to show you what works for me.
The pattern for this dress is discussed in this post here!
Step 1: I cut out my pieces. I needed to cut the back as two pieces, with a center back seam because of a snafu that happened with this fabric a while ago. It's a long story. Front and/or back seams are totally okay! Piecing is okay! I'm really lucky I could make this dress work with just that one alteration to the pattern.
So the very first thing I had to do was to partially sew up the back seam. If I weren't trying to follow the continuity of the steps I laid out in my pattern post, I'd have gone ahead and inserted the back godet. But to keep it simple, I just partially stitched up the top back so I could cut my neckline in. I used a V-neck for this dress. (I'm going to cover necklines in depth in the future.)
Step 2: Sew the shoulder seams. (You can see my back seam in this photo.) This is a great time to slip on your tunic so you can make sure you like the neckline.
Step 3: Finish the shoulder seams and neckline. I also partially finished my back seam, so I could do my facing. I wrote an entire separate post on the facing here! I'm flat felling my seam in the photo. I did the facing after this was completed.
Step 4: Fold your sleeve in half lengthwise, and align the fold with your shoulder seam. The right side of your sleeve (if you're using fabric with right and wrong) and the right side of your shoulder seam ought to be touching. Pin this center point, and then unfold the sleeve, and pin the whole edge. Stitch. Repeat on the other side.
A pretty important note about how I sew right now. Because I want to be able to go back and easily flat fell all my seams, I don't sew from edge of piece to edge of piece. I sew from seam allowance to seam allowance. Meaning that I back my stitching line up 3/4" from the edge of that sleeve piece when I attach it to the body panels. I also find this helps IMMENSELY when inserting the gussets.
Step 5: Attach one side of your gusset to the inside corner of the sleeve. I'm going to show you two pictures here. In my original directions, I suggested notching the corners of your gussets. Particularly if you sew edge to edge, you HAVE to do that. Because I don't sew edge to edge, I don't notch my gussets. This is what the next step looks like with a notched gusset:
You would flip the body panel out of the way, and stitch that edge that's lined up together. I do this a little differently, and I decided to show you how I do it. But this only works if you don't have that edge completely sewn down.
I leave my gussets square, and use the corner to line up with the corner of my sleeve piece. I still need to mark where my seam allowance is, because I want to sew, always, seam allowance to seam allowance. I usually mark that with pins, but you can also use a washable marker or chalk. Either way, I sew that seam, connecting the gusset to the sleeve.
Step 6: You can sort of see where the next edge of the gusset naturally lines up with the body panel. You want to stitch that seam next.
Repeat those two steps on the other sleeve.
See how the sleeve is sticking out off toward the left? It should look like a sleeve at this point, even though it's not sewn up yet.
A different angle of the same thing. See how the gusset is sewn to the sleeve, but still free of the second body panel?
Another view of the gusset joined to both sides of the sleeve.
Step 8: Go ahead and sew up the sleeve seam. The flappy bits start to annoy me at this point, and it's a reassurance that you've got that gusset in properly. If your sleeve doesn't easily make a sleeve at this point, your gusset point is probably in the wrong spot.
This is how the body panel gets attached to that last gusset edge.
It seems complicated but if you hold the shoulder seam and pull everything down, the edges line up so nicely for you! Again, I haven't notched my gussets. I like the square points to help me line all this up.
Once you've done that on both sides, this is what you should have. A finished neck and two sleeves. You can try it on again at this point if you want to! All that's left is to finish up the skirt. That will be the subject of my next post.
Part 3 is live HERE
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