Blue Dress

The blue dress is almost finished.  I will try and do a proper shoot of this dress to post.  I found the instructions slightly difficult to understand and ended up totally altering how I inserted the zip as I considered their method messy.  Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the construction of the outer bodice and there are only limited pictures of the lining.

The facing stitched to the lining.

The outer bodice stitched to lining at the slit.

The collar stitched to bodice but not slip-stitched down.

Finished collar

Each sleeve had three darts at the elbow.

The sleeves were eased in and then double stitched.

I hand-stitched the hems on the sleeves.

I ended up folding the seam allowance of the lining to the inside and machine stitching the zip to it.  I then carefully folded the upper seam allowance inside and stab stitched over the zip.

Finished zip, I think it looks neater than it would have the other way which was to fold the seam allowance of both the lining and the upper to the right side of the lining and machine stitch, I did half and it looked awful so I unpicked it.  I've hemmed the skirt upper and only have the lining and a belt to make now.  I wasn't going to bother with a belt but when I tried it on my sister told me it looked like a nightdress so I thought a belt might improve it!