Medieval Dress Sew-Along (Part 3)

Seam finishing on the blue dress (which looks rather gray in photos)!  And at the end of the day, I think I still, inescapably, approach this with a modern clothing mindset. But the finished result is pretty, strong, and it does mimic period construction, after a fashion. So here we go!

After I posted the other parts of the Sew-Along, a friend of mine sent me a screen-cap of the finished side of this set of seams, saying only, "This is sexy." So this is for her.

What you need to know before we really begin is that 1) the shoulder seams are already finished. That happened back during construction. So that will not be covered here. 2) All of these seams are flat felled. Here's a more in-depth tutorial on what that actually means. 3) Some of these can be done in literally any order. Want to do your godets first? Go for it! I did. Want to do them last? Rock on. Some of them, though, need to be done in a particular order. 4) I'm left handed! That may be useful information. If you are right handed, and literally try to sew in the direction that I'm sewing, in photos, it'll probably be uncomfortable. 5) Something I didn't do, something I almost never do, but something which is nevertheless quite helpful to do: IRON all your seams before you start. This won't seem intuitive. But turn the garment inside out, spread your seam allowance open, and press it. It helps, I promise.

Front and back Godets (sometimes called Gores)

Tiny little photo series on the actual process I'm doing, if you don't want to click on the link above:

My back godet is set in a seam, while my front godet is set in a slit. Let's do the back first. We're going to accomplish this in two steps. I want both seams to be felled in the same direction. Notch one side of your back panel seam allowance, where it meets the point of the godet. (Also trim off any top seam allowance you had on your godet, just above the stitching.) Trim the lower portion of that side panel seam allowance down, and fell it away from the center of the dress.

Did that sound like gibberish? This is a photo of the seams meeting (and after completing all the steps above.) The left side seam allowance has been notched at that point, trimmed down (in this case, I trimmed it all the way up, too.) And then I used the seam allowance of the godet to fell the seam, away from the godet.

But do you see, also in the photo above, how my other body panel seam allowance is still intact? And it runs all the way from the neck to the hem. I've trimmed down the unfinished side of the godet, and that and the back seam are all going to get finished in one long stretch, by felling over the body panel seam allowance. It looks like this when it's done. The second seam finish covers all the raw bits at the very top of the first. Everything is encased.

That was really easy! I promise.

Now let's look at the front, set in a slit. Remember how I said to add seam allowance to the top of that one? Don't trim that off! We need it. The seam allowance of our body panels, at the slit, grades down to nothing. So we can't use that to fell anything. We have to fell the entire godet to the outside. I literally like to start from the hem on one side, work all the way up, finish the point, and then work my way back down. The point really is the tricky part, but here's how you handle it.

Make sense? Everything folds down nicely, like wrapping a present. That's why having seam allowance at the top of this piece is SO important. This step also helps to anchor the godet in place, and provides some reinforcement for that delicate insertion point.

The front and back godets are done! And they went pretty quickly. Now let's move on to all that business happening at the side seams.

Finishing the Sleeves

I like to skip to the sleeves at this point, but you'll see where you could jump around here, in a bit. But this is what we're looking at:

(Side note: there's an absolutely LOVELY photo floating all over Pinterest of an orange gusset that's been fully finished, with some arrows drawn on it. It's amazingly helpful! It's what helped me, and I'm sure hundreds of other people figure this process out. I don't know who it belongs to, but that person is AWESOME. But if you want a bit more of a step by step, that's what my goal here is.)

First things first, we want to trim some excess fabric away. Every seam of the gusset will be felled IN, toward the center of the gusset. I like to go ahead and trim the entire thing to start off with. I find it faster, and easier. Part of why I don't notch my gussets in construction is because I actually want to cut those points off on an angle. Like so, just above the line of stitching. Never cut through your stitches!

I also want to go ahead and trim all those gusset sides.

Isn't that nicer?  You'll find a few other bunchy points that need to be trimmed off at various points, most notably where the sleeve is joined. Trim those as needed.

The very first thing we're going to do, super fast, super easy, is one little side of the gusset, where it joins to the sleeve. And we, of course, will use the sleeve seam allowance to accomplish that. It needs to be notched exactly like the body panel in the back godet section. The notch should be where the sleeve seam meets the gusset.

That little piece in my fingers is the other bit I trimmed off before starting to sew. Then I felled just that little 4" strip.

Now, see how the other side of the seam allowance continues from the shoulder all the way down? That's what you're going to use to fell that side of the gusset, and continue on to finish the rest of the sleeve. In this photo you can see that my gusset is, of course, trimmed. I just need to trim down the rest of that sleeve seam, where I notched it earlier.

See? Easy! You do have to ease the corners, where the gusset meets the sleeve, using your fingers to work the fabric flat. It just takes some patience. The same is true for godets, or anywhere you have different angles meeting.

I'm feeling accomplished, though! We're so close. Obviously, these steps need to be done in this order. And before we can finish the shoulder and the rest of the gusset, we need to hop down to the skirt, and work on that some more. This is the part that can be done kind of at any time, prior to the shoulder.

This is where we are now. I need to trim off the seam allowance from the top of my godets.

I also went ahead and notched one side of my body panel seam allowance. Again, we want all these seams to be felled in the same direction. We're going to start with that notched seam allowance, and fell away from the center seam.

Now we're going to repeat the process with the center seam. Felling in the same direction.

Now stop. We want to leave the last skirt seam alone for now. We're going to finish the shoulder, side seam, and that last skirt seam all in one go, and we're going to fully encase all of our raw edges at the same time! Can you see how?

Notch the side seam where it meets the gusset. And that's the same spot where you want to start felling. Fell toward the sleeve.  When you get up to that shoulder seam that's already finished, you can trim a little of the material away from the edge, on the underside, to remove bulk. But it fells nicely, I promise.

Keep going over the shoulder, down to the other side of the gusset.

And keep on going, all the way down to the hem.

And that's that side completed! Repeat the process on the other side, and all you have left is hemming the cuffs and bottom edge!

For previous posts related to this project:
A Basic Medieval Dress (or Tunic) Tutorial Post
Medieval Dress Sew-Along (Part 1)
Medieval Dress Sew-Along (Part 2)