Dottie Angel Frockalong - seams, neckline and sleeves.

Hi all,

I hope all our frockalong sewists are enjoying our posts! You can find Cassie's posts about the pleats, ties and pockets here.

Today I will briefly show you how to do French seams, how the neckline is finished and how to finish the sleeve. I will also show you how I added pleats to my shoulder seams.

French seams

I used the French seam technique for all my seams. It gives a neat finish and is less fiddly than the bias technique used in the pattern. In the picture I am sewing the bottom and top dress sections together, you use the same steps for the shoulder and side seams.

1. Pin fabric wrong sides together. Sew 1/4" seam.

2. Press seam to set stitches. Trim seam allowance back to 1/8".

3. Fold top layer of fabric over and press seam to one side. Then fold fabric along seam line right sides together. Press seam.

4. Sew 1/4" seam, enclosing the raw edge in the seam allowance. Press to one side and top stitch 1/8" along seam.

Neck edge finish

I followed the pattern instructions for this. So I will just cover it briefly.

1. On the right side of the fabric pin bias tape around the edge of neck with crease being 3/8" from edge. Fold end of tape as shown and overlap the other end over the top.

2. Sew along the open crease. Trim excess fabric back to the edge of the bias tape.

3. Fold to the wrong side of the fabric. Fold it in enough to have an extra 1/8" of fabric folded too. The pattern explains this quite clearly.

4. Stitch around neckline on the edge of the bias. Stitch around a second time 1/4" closer to edge of neckline. Press.

Sleeve or Armhole edge

I followed the pattern for this too. So I will just cover it briefly.

1. On right side of fabric pin bias tape along armhole edge. Line up the open crease with the dot at either end, keep this distance from the edge all the way along. Taper the bias tape out between the dot and notch. My scissors show where the dot and notch are. Make sure this is the same at both ends, it helps when sewing the side seams if they are accurate.

2. Sew along crease. Trim excess fabric back to bias tape edge.

3. Fold bias edge under to wrong side of fabric along the fold line. Sew along the edge of the bias tape. Sew a second time 1/4" closer to the armhole edge.

Adding pleats to the shoulders

I came up with this modification to try and make the shoulder not quite as wide. I was just going to gather it along the seam or use a tab to pull it in but they just created bulk between the shoulder and bust that looked weird. So the pleat idea was born. You may need to alter the length of the pleats depending on your bust and back. Also the pattern I created is for the M size dress so will need to make your pleats closer, bigger or smaller depending on the size you are making.

To start with I pinned the pleats onto a finished dress to see if it would work.

Then I drew up the pleat template and sewed it on my next dress. You do the pleats after you have sewn the armhole edge as per the pattern and before you sew the side seams.

You can download the templates here .

This is what the back template looks like, the front is very similar. Make sure to print at 100%. Each template should fit on an A4 sheet of paper. As you can see I was still playing with the pleat length, you may need to alter the lengths to suit your shape.

Lay the template over you shoulder seam. You can see the finished edges are in from the edge of the template according to the seam allowance.

Transfer the solid lines from the template. I put a dot every inch or so. The dotted line is the fold line.

Fold right sides together along dotted line. Sew along the solid line.

Your pleats should be on the inside of the dress, as shown in the above picture.

Press pleats to one side. Mine are pressed toward the armhole edge.

Edge stitch along the edge of the shoulder seam to hold the pleats down.

Do this on both shoulders. This is my finished shoulders on the Dottie Angel frock made with cotton lawn fabric. The pleats sit really nicely, especially on the front!

What's coming up? On Wednesday I will have an interview with Catherine (@knittingcatherine on Instagram) about her sewing and her modifications.

I will also share some pictures and links to other instagrammers and bloggers who have done different things with their Dottie frocks.

Don't forget that we have some really great prizes up for grabs, even if you haven't finished your dress you will be able to enter! Progress is everything! Remember to use our hashtag #dottieangelfrockalong so we can see your frocks!

One of our sponsors is a local Aussie girl who designs really flattering patterns. Go check out her website, Sew to Grow! We are giving away her Bondi Top pattern!

Feel free to drop us a message or email if you have any questions!

Make it sew, Jess

 

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Dottie Angel Frockalong Kick Off!

Hi! Welcome to the Dottie Angel Frockalong!

I am so excited to be making the Dottie Angel frock with you all! I am not a professional dressmaker but I do love to make clothes for myself and have been doing so for many years. I occasionally have trouble sticking to a pattern so sometimes I will show you how I do it rather than how the pattern says to do it. I hope you enjoy sewing along with Cassie and myself!

Now, some fun news! Cassie has been working hard and found some sponsors for our little Frockalong, so anyone that plays along and has a finished frock to show at the end could be in for a surprise!

Cassie will fill us all in on all the sponsor details in a dedicated post in a couple of days. How exciting!

Ok, let's get down to business! Have you got your pattern?

Picking your size – measure your bust, waist and hips. Pick the largest measurement and use that as your starting point. For me that is my bust, which probably makes it easier. Simplicity have a great guide for how to measure yourself here. If you have a bigger waist you may find it finishes baggy around the bust and shoulders. I found a great PDF here that goes over a lot of alterations you can do but for such a simple dress shape you shouldn't need to go crazy with alterations. The only change I made was to lower the front pleats which I will cover later in this post.

I also measure the actual pattern pieces to confirm that I have picked the right size. Lay the front and back pieces together, measure across the two pieces leaving off the seam allowance, double that and you have the full circumference of the dress around the bust. Put the tape measure around you bust and see if that measurement fits, don't forget to allow a couple of inches for ease. If it is too tight you may need to go up a size, if it is way to big you may need to go down a size.

In the interest of full disclosure my bust measurement is 40" and I made size M. I still had to take it in a further 1/4" down both side seams for it to fit how I like.

Fabrics – the pattern envelope gives you good ideas on what sort of fabric you should use. I used cotton patchwork fabric for two dresses and a lovely cotton viole for another. If you are wearing it in summer go for lighter fabrics that breath, like cotton and linen.

Altering pleat position – I lowered my pleats approximately 2". I'll explain how I worked it out.

1. Measure from your top of shoulder to where you want the middle of the pleats to be. I chose just under my bust, others have chosen to do the pleats at the waistline. It is purely up to you! I wanted the middle point of my pleat to be 14 1/2" down from the shoulder.

2. Find your new pleat position on the pattern with your tape measure. Then with a ruler draw in your new pleats directly below the original pleat positions.

Cutting – the only change I made was to cut the tie approx 6” shorter, unless you want to wrap the tie around your waist and tie it at the front it is going to be too long.

Cutting for View C

If you are making a view that requires the paper pattern piece to be shortened just fold it up on the cutting line. You might regret cutting it off later so just fold it out of the way as I have done in the picture below.

Make sure to copy markings for pocket position, pleat position and shoulder dots and fold line. You can use a water soluble pen, just be sure to get the pen mark off before you iron it as ironing could set the ink. Or you can use a chalk pencil or a Frixion pen.

To transfer markings to the other side of the dress poke a pin through the pattern and fabric to use as your guide. Fold the pattern paper back and mark where the pins are.

You also don't need to draw the whole line. For example, with the fold line for the sleeve just put a mark at the top of the should and the dot at the bottom.

Now you should be ready to start sewing!

Here's a brief outline of what we have coming up -

Wednesday is sponsor announcement day and we will explain how the prize pool will work. Cassie will also give a more in depth schedule of our future posts.

On Friday Cassie is going to cover making the pockets and show a couple of different ideas that you might like to try on your pockets.

Next Monday I will show you how to do the seams for the dress View C, the shoulders, neckline and how to do the sleeve.

There will also be a special guest post for a variation on the sleeve and more after that for finishing the dress.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask either of us.

Have fun, Jess

 

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Tula and Jaybird Quilts mini swap

Hi all,

If you are on Instagram you may have heard about this by now, Kelly (@thequiltmachine), Abby (@abby_colorbarquilts) and I are hosting a mini quilt swap inspired by the gorgeous combination of Tula Pink fabric and Jaybird Quilts mini patterns.

For all the details head over to Kelly's blog where she has all the info there for you. But just a heads up - sign ups start on Friday! And we are limiting the swap to 500 participants so get in quick!

In the meantime, here is a Tula Pink/Jaybird Quilts collaboration that I made for a mini quilt swap earlier this year.

And this one, using the same pattern but made the full length now lives on my dining table.

I hope you will join us!

Make it sew, Jess

 

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Dottie Angel Frockalong

Hi all,

I am happy to announce that Cassie and I are co-hosting a little sew along featuring the Dottie Angel frock, simplicity #1080.

I posted on Instagram a few days ago to let people know where they might be able to buy the pattern - At the moment and finishing today sewingpatterns.com has simplicity patterns for USD$2.99, this is where I got our patterns from. You can also buy from simplicity.com for about 40% off rrp. I also found a couple of patterns on Etsy. If you need help finding the pattern let me know and I will do my best to help.

Starting early December we are going to do some tutorials on our blogs to help you make your own Dottie Angel frock. We are planning to cover the basic construction of the dress as per the original pattern and also show you some modifications that you might like to try to make the dress your own.

I have even lined up a guest interviewee who will tell us how to do a variation that she has done. So it will be a very exciting time!

Here is my first Dottie Angel frock! I wore it on a very hot day here in Brissie and was quite comfortable all day. So I'm very happy with it and can't wait to make a couple more with you!

I hope you will join us!

Make it sew, Jess

 

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