 Hi, you guys. Welcome to another Seamwork Sew Along. I am Lindsey, the host of Inside the Hem on YouTube. I'm so glad you found the Sew Along. This dress is so super cute. It does have a lot of really cute details, lots of gathers. It has a really pretty v-neck with a midriff, like a fitted midriff. And a lot of really fun sewing techniques and skills that you're going to be able to put to good use for this pattern. So in this video, we're going to be talking about everything you need to know before you actually start sewing. So it's like the pre Sew Along, which is why I call it Episode Zero. We're talking about how to pick your size, how to make, like if you need to grade between two sizes, how to make those alterations. And then we'll talk about fabrication, like what kind of fabrics are ideal for this pattern. Everything is going to be prepared to go before we look at a single step on the instructions. So just get everything fully prepped. So without further ado, let's get into it. Look how cute this dress is. We have a bit of a forward shoulder with a little bit of gathers, a beautiful v-neck, and then this little, I guess it's like a waistband, what do they call it? They call a midriff. This beautiful, like billowy, wonderful sleeve with a little bit of elastic at the bottom, and then a skirt that's also gathered here. The under bust is gathered as well. And it's just like a really pretty dress. I, as you know, am a fan of just changing it up ever so slightly. And so I'm probably going to be adding a tear or two. I have a lot of the fabric that I'm using. So feel free to experiment with the skirt, speaking of which, the member bonus, this six gourd non-gathered skirt. So picture more of a circle skirt situation. So if you are a seam work member, you get this extra bonus for free. You do not have access to it if you are not a member. So right now I have a coupon code for 50% off the seam work membership. Check the description box to grab that. There's about a gazillion reasons why you should join seam work. The member bonus is just one of them. As a reminder, Mrs. Patterns are a C cup for a height of 5'8". Curvy Patterns are a double D cup for a height of 5'9". So I always, even though I am in like the high range of the misses and the low range of the curvy, based on my measurements, I always make the misses because of the smaller cup size. And then I didn't make any adjustments. You'll see as we start looking at that to the length because I kind of want like a little bit of a below the knee length. Anyways, I'm 5'5". So I'm wanting to see how this three inches hits my knee. That's also why I'm determining, I'm waiting to determine if I'm going to add any other layers or ruffles or whatever at the bottom. Alright, so typically at this point we will be busting out the fast fit worksheet. This is a little system that I've developed on my own to help actually just calculate this information. So for seam work patterns, you don't have to use the fast fit system. But if you want to know how they get to this number and you want to apply that to other patterns, download the fast fit worksheet. It's in the link in the description box as well. So the bust is four and a half inches. The waist is zero inches and then the hip is pretty much negligible. So this zero inches of waist makes me a little bit nervous because I don't want to be a sausage casing. It is fitted, but I'm just thinking I might want a little bit more room. And that's what the beauty about having the ease laid out for you can help you determine. Do I want seriously zero extra room in the waist? No, I probably want an inch, right? And that'll still give the look, but it'll still be comfortable. And then because of that in the bust, there's a lot of room here. So you might be able to size down. So when I come down to my to the measurement chart, I'm actually going to start with the waist. So again, I don't want zero inches of ease. It's actually technically an eighth of an inch of ease. But I see how they just were like, let's just make that zero to make it simple for everybody. So my waist is 35 and a half inches. So that's obviously closer to the 36. So if I make the size 16 at the waist, then I'll have almost an inch of ease, which is great. Since I am basing this off of my waist, I only have one option. I can only make the size 14 because I do not like jumping more than one size in between each horizontal marker on your body. So horizontal marker one, two, three. So at most I could do 14, 16, 18. And that's all based on that waist size. So that's what I did. I did a size 14 in the bust and then a size 16 in the waist and the hip. I did not go up to an 18 in the hip. I just kept it simple and did a size 16. So what does that mean whenever we're going to be grading this pattern between the bust and the waist? Now there's a lot of different parts, right? There's a lot of pattern pieces here. So let's go back up to the line drawings on the inside and outside. Okay, so this is your bust, right? This is your waist and this is your hip. So if you were to print out this page and draw a horizontal line across here, every single thing that this line touches is going to be your bust size. So that includes the front, the sleeve, and the back yoke. Or I guess, and the yoke itself. Then from on your waist line, everything that this line touches is going to be your waist measurement. So it's really just this yoke and the skirt. Okay, so, oh, and the back and the back as well. So between your bust and your waist is where you'll be grading. So as you can see at the side seam, there's just this little sliver of this midriff. So you're really grading the bodice between the bust and the bottom of the bodice. 14 here, 16 here, and then you're cutting the whole midriff as a size 16. Then you're cutting the top of the skirt at a size 16 and then grading out to whatever your hip measurement is. If you're grading out at the hip, then you would grade from, if I were making an 18 at the hip, I would grade from 16 to 18 through here and then the whole rest of the skirt would be the size 18. Okay, and then before we move on, you need to do the same thing for the facings. So as you come through here, you can see that this little piece here, this facing, is going to be your bust measurement. And then this thing needs to be whatever your waist measurement is, which you're cutting two pieces of the midriff anyway, so you don't really have to think about that. Same thing with the yoke. So this is the only other piece that you have to worry about. So you're grading between bust and waist, but really you're just grading between the bust point and the bottom of the bodice piece. Same thing with the back, you're grading from your size 14 to your size 16 down here. Okay, so grading, yeah, a little bit funky because there just are so many pieces, but if you stop and you think and you write things down and, you know, draw yourself a little chart, you should be able, before you pull out your scissors at all, you should be able to do it without any error at all. Okay, so here is our pattern inventory. Again, lots of pieces, and we have lots on the fold, right, which is why when we get to the cutting layouts, this is for 45 inch fabric. I had 60 inch fabric, but I'm not making a size 10. All of these so far are the same. You really just fold your fabric in half, selvedge edges touching, the fold line is here, like you normally, like the most common way to cut fabric. Same thing with here, except for the sleeve, you're going to do it flat and cut each piece out individually. Don't forget to mirror image them. That's what this is. And then same thing for 60 inch 00 through 10. I was a 60 inch 12 through 18. And this is when things get a little bit funky. So your sleeve and your front bodice are going to be cut like normal, but everything else gets cut with the selvedge edges matching in the middle. So you kind of like bookend it. You fold one selvedge to the center, fold the other selvedge to the center. This way you have two fold lines. This here is a error. This should also say fold and your selvedge should be here. So fold line here, fold line here, selvedge in the middle. And then size 60, same situation. All of these get done normally. And then this little situation is, again, fold line here, fold line here, selvedge in the middle. Then you need to cut some interfacing for that little facing piece. Easy peasy. Do not forget to honor the grain line for your interfacing as well. Interfacing has grain lines, okay? You can't just throw it on there any old way. You have to do it the same way as you do everything else. So back over here to where all of my stuff is, I want to show you what it looks like, the grating that I did. So for like, I guess let's start at the top. So the yoke is a straight size 14, right? Because the yoke only goes to like my mid back. Basically almost my bust line. So all of that is the bust measurement. Easy peasy. Then we get to the back. The back is going to be from a 14 and grated out to a 16 at this bottom part of the back. So this is what, yeah, this is what's going to get matched up to the yoke. So that has to be a 14. And then arm size is a 14 because the sleeve is a 14. And then come down here and the waistline is a 16. So that's what that is. Then we have the bodice front. Again, 14 everywhere. This is what gets attached to the front of the yoke, like where the, I guess, the shoulder portion of the yoke, it kind of folds over your body a little bit. This is all gathered in arm size of 14. And then from a 14 to a 16 at the bottom of the, this is not technically your waistline, but it is close enough. So that's going to be the size 16 there. And then because the length of this is starting at 14 and coming down to 16, you really have to honor that whenever you go to put this piece on. So again, 14 to 16 through here. But the width is the width really doesn't matter. The width can be as deep into here as you want it. So I just cut mine at a 14. Okay. So now we know all those pieces are going to fit together well. And then we have the midriff. And the midriff is going to be a size 16 through and through all the way around. Okay. Cause the bottom of the bodice goes here. Right. And this is where it attaches at the under bust and then your side seam. And then this is where it attaches to the skirt. And then all my skirts are a size 16 straight all the way down size 16. I could have braided out to an 18 at the hip, but I figured I wanted a slimmer skirt by a little bit. So, and there's so much ease in the skirts. I wasn't really worried about that. So that's how I cut everything out. That's how I graded and how I determined what size I was going to make. Now for my fabric, I am using this beautiful, not really a hundred percent sure what it is, but I think it's some kind of crepe. The more important thing with your fabric choice is that it is drapey enough. Okay. I'm not saying you have to use a shali or a crepe or anything like that. In fact, the pattern suggests light to medium weight woven fabrics such as linen, chambray, butteased, lawn, wall, rayon, shali, cupro and tinsel. So some of those are super lightweight and drapey like the rayon shali. Some of them are lightweight, but not as drapey like butteased, lawn and wall. And then some of them are a little bit heavier without a lot of drape like linen and chambray. And then some are heavier with a lot of drape like cupro and tinsel. And just know that the less drapey that your fabric is, the more billowy your skirt is going to be, the more billowy your sleeve is going to be. Everything is going to kind of stand away from your body a little bit more than if you were to pick something super, super drapey. So find something that is suitable and go ahead and cut everything out. Okay, at this point you'll cut your fabric. You'll prepare your sewing machines. You will change your needle on your regular sewing machine. You will thread it. You will load two bobbins. There's a lot of gathers and each gathering seam on this dress takes three stitching lines. So you're going to need lots and lots of thread, two bobbins, and then you're going to change the needle on your serger, change your serger thread. If you need to replace the knives, go ahead and do all that. Go ahead and cut your interfacing, apply the interfacing. Let's take it ready for the next video where we will start sewing through the instructions. We're going to get basically the bodice pretty much fully prepared before we sew the back and the yoke and everything together. So finish all that and then we'll be back here on the next video.