 Hi you guys, welcome back to Sibylong that we're doing for simplicity 9642. If you're following along in the Sibylong workbook, this is a free asset that I designed to work in conjunction with the Sibylong to help you stay organized and stay on track in terms of timing as we make our way through making this project. So without further ado, let's get to the cutting table. All right so for today's video we need basically all the components of the dress except for the sleeve and the facings. We are going to be for the most part assembling our dress today and going through steps one through seven. A lot of this construction of the dress is the same step repeated. So we have every single piece needs to be stay stitched at the upper edge your bodice, your front and back, and all of your skirt pieces. So that's the first thing that we're going to tackle. We're going to take every single one of these and stay stitch the upper edge of all. Let's talk stay stitching. So stages stitching is really just when you put a row of stitching just barely to the inside of your normal seam allowance because a lot of these pieces have this curve and at the curve there are parts of it where your fabric is cut on the bias and it runs the risk of stretching out. So to put the stage stitching in just a little bit of reassurance that it's not going to stretch out at the seam line. So what I like to do is set my machine at the normal stitch length which is 5 eighths or stitch width I should say and then I will move my needle ever so slightly to the right of that just by a millimeter or so just to ensure that it's not going to show when we sew at our regular 5 eighths but I can't go too far because then it won't be doing the job that it's supposed to do and then my stitch length is going to be pretty small I'll set it at a 2.5 and you just stitch around the seam you can back stitch if you want it's not necessary and just like that you have done a stay stitch. The only other important thing to remember with a stay stitch is that you want to start it at like on your bodice for example you start at the shoulder seam and come in toward the center on your skirts you're going to start at the outer seam and come in toward the center that just ensures that you don't stretch out the fabric while you're putting in the stay stitch but do all of your pieces all of your skirts both bodices get all of your stay stitching done now. Pieces that are cut on the fold like our I think this is the center front panel remember we're starting from the outer edge and coming to the center so you're going to start here come to the center break your stitches turn this over started the other outer edge and come to the center all right so the next task that is kind of on repeat is darting so we're going to put a dart in both of the back bodices and we're going to put a dart in both of the back skirt pieces so if you transferred your markings as a good student would have then you are pretty much good to go here if you didn't then you need to transfer those markings it's not hard to do you just use a tracing wheel and some like tracing paper like so and transfer the markings over to your pattern piece you do want to do this on the wrong side so that you can see it when you are sewing all right in order to pin up your darts to prepare them for sewing you take your sewing pins and you fold up the dart along the center as best as you can eyeball it you put a pin in one leg like that and then you flip it over to the other side to see if you've caught the other leg and I don't know if you can see my yellow markings but I missed it by a mile so you smoosh the fabric slide the fabric over to where your pin is going through the line on both sides so you can see now mine is and then I will usually go up to the top if you need more instruction on this stay stitching pleading any of those kinds of things all of this is covered in heavy heavy detail in my e-course my garment sewing basics e-course so I recommend if you need more instruction than what I'm giving here that you go check that out but at this point you'll go to your iron you'll press this nice and flat and then you'll sew from here back stitching coming across the leg um and not back stitching here but just pulling a thread and tying it off and because we've pinned where the lines match up front to back you will ensure that you catch the stitching line on both sides of the dart right moving on to another sewing skill we are going to be doing some gathers and you can see that you're only gathering between the two notches on your uh bodice your front bodice piece so it's only between these two notches here you should have marked them and let's head to the machine here's one and here's the other one let's have the machine and I'll show you how I gather fabric all right so you are going to set your machine to its longest stitch length and keep it at its regular position but the needle at its regular position but you are going to sew on eighth or a quarter of an inch to the left of your five eighth seam allowance and an eighth or a quarter to the right of your seam allowance we're going to do two rows of stitches leaving long tails at one end the other end we are going to back stitch so setting my needle here for the start of one and you only have to back stitch a couple stitches come down to that other notch which is right here and then keep a nice long tail to allow you to pull that um the thread to create the gather so now that I've got one nice big seam allowance I'll do the one that's just to the inside of the five eighths and again starting over here and uh backstitching and then on the same end where I left the nice long tail on the other one I'll do the same for this one all right and now your fabric is ready to be pulled up using the bobbin threads like so so we don't know how much we're gonna have to gather this until we get it over to our skirt so we'll work through that at the table but beautiful little gathers okay on to the other one all right moving right along we are going to attach our front bodice to our back bodice and I have been hemming and hawing about how I'm going to finish my seams and I think that I'm going to do french seams on this one it's time to make a garment that's like leveled up I mean of course it's easy just to throw it through your serger and finish the seams that way but I don't know I'm feeling like extra special about this one the fabric is special my nails match like I don't know I'm feeling like this one deserves a little bit of extra special attention so if you've never done french seams before again it is in that um that e-course that I have so if you want you know really in-depth detail on it head there but the quick and dirty of it is you sew it wrong sides together first at a quarter inch seam allowance then you turn it right side out and stitch it again at your three eighths which equals five eighths and from there your seam is finished on the inside it does look really really beautiful um and it's just a beautiful way to finish seams so that's what I'm going to be doing if you're not doing that that's fine um just run a stitch through like your normal seam allowance the five eighths and then finish it either with pinking shears or zigzag on your sewing machine or run it through your serger and one thing I want to note no matter which no matter how you're finishing your seams when you match up your shoulder seams and this might happen other areas too the big four isn't great about like truing up these corners so you are going to have a little bit of a triangle that hangs over all you want to make sure is that at this intersection here that's your five eighths because all we care about what's happening is right here at the intersection of the five eighths seam allowance at the neckline so if that is at five eighths then you are good to go no matter what's happening over here on the seam allowances all right so shoulder seams we're also doing side seams so might as well do those all at once and also we are going to be looking at our skirt pieces seven and eight which are the the like little side pieces not that kind of side piece we have seven and eight here seven and eight get put together matching up the notches matching my seven looks like this so you're matching up the center front panel like this with the double notch side and you can't really see this now because I've lifted I took so much out of my skirt piece but this is the double notch side the one without all of the grading on it so as long as I have that organized it's the side that has little funky corner okay oops so these get placed and remember I'm doing mine backwards wrong sides together so that I can do um the french seams so if you're not doing that then don't necessarily follow this wrong sides together you're going to be doing yours right sides together like normal all right so this gets sewn on the other one gets sewn on to the other side and then we're going to also sew the skirt back onto this as well so you're going to have a whole skirt with a center back seam undone and you're going to have a whole bodice with the center back undone you're also I forgot to show you but you're also going to do this center front seam on the front bodices after you get the sides and the shoulders done you're doing this seam as well just in between the small dot and the big dot okay so head to your machine sew those they're just straight stitches okay so I'm not going to show you what I'm doing at my machine um because I know I'm doing something a little bit funky um but just go to your machine sew these finish the seams however you want and I'll meet you back here with a separate bodice and a separate skirt both open at the center back only okay you want to see what the fringe seams look like it was a good decision you guys isn't that beautiful oh it's just it really does make a difference and honestly like after I got in the groove of it it was fine it just became very like you know it's an extra step of sewing but it was fine okay so now we are going to join our skirt to our bodice we are at step number seven you are going to take your bodice piece and your skirt piece and in theory we're joining them together like this so you have your large dot of your skirt piece gets matched up with this guy and obviously you guys are doing this right sides together um but I just want to illustrate it this way because this is like the finished look the darts in the back should also line up together so the dart from your bodice and the dart from your skirt should all be in one line center back should match side seams should also match and then um as you get through here through the through the gathers you just want to make sure your big dot and your notches match up through here and then pull up your gathers to make sure that um all of that is even and you're going to do that on both sides since I'm doing French seams yes I'm going to try and do them on this as well um it might take me some time it be a little bit of a headache but again I do think that it is going to be worth it um the only other thing to note is the pivoting so they want you to come up and sew this and pivot at the large dot and then come down here sometimes I do find it easier to actually break my stitching like back stitching everything stop and then completely start over just to make sure your needle is in the right place for the big dot and on your skirt and the big dot on your bodice so those two things coming together perfectly is what's going to prevent like a pucker situation so let me get all this pinned up I'll take you to the machine and kind of show you how it all comes together okay so I have already stitched one half of mine and you can see kind of how the gathers distribute now remember I'm doing French seams so mine's going to be backwards right mine's going to be wrong side mine's going to be wrong sides together first um but the center backs match the darts line up the side seam is the next like monument to look for and then you're gathering up um the essentially the bust cup and then you come through this center front part and I broke my seams I broke my stitch right at the large dots so you can see how that looks there so I'm going to start right where I stopped for me I'm doing the quarter inch first I'm going to start right here if you're doing normal seams you're going to start right where your five eighths seam allowance is and you're going to come down this way and so along the other edge oh the other point I want to make is I like to put my gathers where they touch the feed dogs because they the feed dogs kind of help distribute them a little bit um other than that yeah it's kind of just going for it and say a hope and a prayer you are going to end up like pulling these things apart a little bit you might have to you know seam rip a little bit and and do it again but that's okay um you can get through it just take your time and here we go back stitch okay and then just follow your seam allowance as you get to the gathers reach under here and just make sure everything is kind of not taut but at least you know sort of taut okay now I'm going to finish up my the other part of my french seam off-camera and show you the results well you guys I am pretty impressed with myself this is how my little center front turned out um with the french seams on the inside not the most beautiful construction like I don't think Dior would be hiring me anytime soon but I'm pretty happy with it again there's that little pucker there I could fuss with it I might we'll just see how the night goes um but after you have gotten to this point no matter how you are finishing your seams you're going to come through here remove all of your basting threads from the gathering step and just any other rogue threads that you have and this is where we're going to stop for today if you want to get ahead for tomorrow um you can go ahead and finish your center back seams so if you are using a serger you just run it through the serger if you are not then you're going to want to do like a little baby hem I did a little bit of one here on the center back skirt um but you'll just carry this through and just do like I said a baby hem all the way up that way when we put our zipper in you know the zipper is going to be installed like this for better or for worse this little seam here does not have or this little raw edge here won't fray on you it'll be nice and turned under and pretty and hemmed or finished in one way or another so we basically have a dress zone it also was a great time to test this put it on see how you did on all of your alterations if you need to take in at the side seam sorry at the side seam you can do that um you can also take in from the center back if you want but make sure that this seam has to be straight um because that's where your zipper is going so that has to be a perfectly straight line um okay so that that does it I really like her she's really coming together really well the next video is inserting the zipper and attaching making installing the facing so I'll meet you back here for that