 Okay, so now we are going to be working on the skirt. So we are going to install the pockets and then attach all the skirt panels and then add gathers to our skirt in this video. So without further ado, go ahead and grab all your skirt pieces. You're also going to need all four of your pocket pieces. And if you missed episode zero, my pocket looks a lot different than yours and you're probably wondering why. I like to anchor my pockets into some kind of horizontal seam. So for us, that is the Empire waist seam. So I have an elongated pocket, but all my pockets are not going to flop around and they're always going to stay to the front. It's just a superior pocket, you know, I don't like to brag, but it really fits. Okay. Okay. All right. So first things first, you're going to take your piece D, which is our side front skirt. This, these dots here are where the pocket goes. This notch over here is what gets attached to the center front panel. So we're going to be working along this side here. These dots should match up with your pocket dots like so. Okay. So easy enough. All we are going to do here is take the side with the two dots, one, two. All right. And we are going to place our pockets right side down on each of these side panels matching up those dots. So that's one side there. And then this side, there they are, is this side here. Okay. These get sewn at a three eighths inch seam allowance. Right. Like this. That way when we sew our sides to the back at the normal five eighths inch seam allowance, the pockets kind of hide on the inside a little bit. You don't see that seam as much. Now if you remember, I am making mine with half inch seam allowances. So I'm just going to do a quarter for the pockets and half inch for the side seams. Okay. Your other two pocket panels get attached to the back piece, which is this. And again, you guessed it, you have two dots here. And that is what gets lined up with the two dots on your pocket panel. I was a dodo bird and forgot to surge my pockets. If you've ever watched my soul longs before, then you know that I have this little trick for like kind of like pre-surging pockets, I guess. So when it comes down to this little scoopy part where it meets back up with the skirt again, it is very difficult to surge around this and then come down here. So to get around that, I always pre-surge, I don't know, like this much of my pocket on each of the pocket pieces. And then I'll sew them together and then surge. And I'm only, when I go to finally surge them, I'm only surging from about here and back around and back up again. So that everything is finished, there's no raw edges, but you're not having to do some gymnastics, you know, at your surge to try and get it around this little edge. So here is the little pocket preparation I was explaining to you with my surger where I just take it from that corner where it's attached to the skirt and then, I don't know, come out six inches or so and then just leave a tail and we will address that whenever we are finishing the pockets. And the next step will be to attach the side panels to the back. So you should, like I said, have two side panels and two back panels. Your back panels are going to be wider, lining these up right sides together, like this, all right. And in two separate parts, you're going to be sewing all around your pocket, the entire pocket. And then you're also going to sew from the top little dot to your raw edge. If that is just a little bit because you're using the normal floppy pocket, that's fine. If you extended your pocket like mine, that means you're going to be sewing this much. You're sewing all of this and then from the lower dot on your pocket to that other notch, there's a third notch on your skirt pieces. And that's where you're stopping. Okay, you're going to back stitch right here and leave all of this open so that we can attach our hem facing later and have this really cute slit on the side. And again, we're dropping this down and we're only sewing from the top edge if you're doing the extended pocket down to the top. Okay, now you're going to back stitch. Great. Clip your threads there. And then from the lower edge of the pocket, you're going to stitch from what I guess is the technically is the middle dot on your skirt piece down to the lower dot on your skirt piece. Now we need to contend with the pockets themselves. So you match up the pocket pieces and you sew around the entire perimeter of the pocket. All right, everybody. So once you get your pockets done, you've got your pocket in here. Mine has a little peek-a-boo with some contrast striphage. I don't know if I really like that or not, but it is what it is. I don't like when you can see it too much. We'll see what happens when I wear it. It could be gathered enough that it's fine. It could be one of those things that bothers me to no end. Only time will tell. Okay, so now you've got to add your center front panel. And it goes in between the two side panels. Essentially, this little thing is just getting inserted right smack dab in the middle of our two skirt pieces that we currently have. So we have a lot of skirt. Many panels that are all very wide. So now we've got to make this something that is going to fit into our little bodice. So we are going to be gathering the upper edge of the skirt. Now I feel like every single sew along I've done in the past, I don't know, it feels like a year, if I'm being honest, has had some form of gathering. Just lots and lots of gathering just keeps happening and that's fine. But if you've been doing all my sew alongs, then you should be pretty well versed in how I like to do my gathering at this point. I do try to create a sense of order in the midst of chaos because instead of just doing like one full on gathering stitch and then trying to pull all that and keep it even, I will go in sections. So I will do the back panel in one section. I will stitch at the largest stitch length my machine has, which for me is a five. The seam allowance is five eighths at this area. So I will stitch an eighth outside of that. So seven eighths, I'm sorry, three quarters. I'll stitch it at three quarter inch seam allowance and then I will backstitch at the end, leaving this one not backstitched, but this one will be backstitched. Then I'll come in and do an eighth of an inch inside of the five eighths inch seam allowance and that's a half inch. So I'll do a half inch gathering stitch here again, leaving this side open and backstitching here. I backstitch at one end because this is so small whenever you gather it up to have this anchored really does allow you to kind of fuss with the gathers and make them nice and smooth. Then I will come in and do the side panel. Then I'll come in and do the same thing for the center panel, other side panel, other back panel of gathering stitches one at three quarters, one at about a half. And then one side is backstitched and the other one isn't. Okay. And because my one of these ends has the backstitching on it, I don't run the risk of ever having to worry about it coming off the other end. I just know that I can distribute my gathers as evenly as I need and everything looks good. I am all done with my gathering. I swear it really does go by faster than it seems like it will. All right. So as I said before, we're replacing these two things together, matching our bodice to our skirt. And the best way to do that is really just to start from one end. Remember, we're using the bottom edge of our skirt of our bodice, which has the darts. And we're going to turn this over and we're just going to start pinning matching as we go. So we're going to match raw edges like this. We are going to match side seams. And even if my gathers are not exactly gathered correctly at this time, I'm going to ignore it and come back to that right now. It's just about matching notches, markings and side seams. Okay. So just illustrating on this back panel, I am going to start letting these out because obviously that's way too many gathers. Got a little excited about the gathering of the back skirt. So just gently, you know, disperse them, keep them kind of even and bubbly. I also like to keep the raw edges turned up as much as I possibly can. That'll help prevent bubbling. I mean puckering later on. Okay. And once you've got them matching kind of one to one, so you're going to just keep doing that all the way down. Okay. So I've got my bodice pinned to my skirt. And we're just going to zip this through at the normal seam allowance and normal stitch length. Now one other little tip I have for your gathers is, okay, as you're going, gently pull on the skirt. The gathers are on the skirt, right? And the skirt is on the bottom of the machine. You know what I'm trying to say? So we're just going to gently pull on this to make sure that any folds that we have are going perpendicular to your body. So they're going to all lay a little bit flatter this way. And then as you're going, make sure again that your raw edges are turned up. Stitch a little bit, you know, gently pull, check on the raw edges, pull them up if you need and go slow. Give your machines feed dogs a minute to kind of help pull those gathers through the machine. And just like that, you've got the beginning, what's looking very much like a dress. And you're just going to come through here and make sure that there aren't any egregious puckers happening. Mine look pretty good. If you have something that's like completely folded over, I'm trying to find an example. Of course, when I need to find one, here's one. Here's one. Okay, can you see how this is like folded over itself? It almost looks more like a plate or something. That would be a no, no. That's a bad pucker. We want this to be straight down. So I would undo that little bit just right here, flatten it all out and stitch over that part again. And then remove your little basting stitch that you can see the gathering stitch there. And then we are going to attach our zipper. I know this is a lot for one video, feel free to pause and use the chapters, you know, to come in and out of the so long as you need. If you're feeling overwhelmed, but between pockets and gathers and all that, a zipper might feel overwhelming right now. I get that. I get that. You fully have my permission to pause the video, go get a snack, go to sleep, whatever you need. But I'm going to go ahead and install the zipper, which is going to go into this center back seam here. We've got our zipper. Our zipper is going to go right side down onto our back seam. Okay, so it's the seam that's closest to me at this point. This is this notch here is the bottom of your zipper. I think it even says that on the pattern piece. So I'm going to put the bottom of my zipper right there. And typically, if you're super worried about fit, and you need it to be very, very close fitting, you will measure out your seam allowance and take this part very seriously. I'm not super concerned with that. So I'm just going to kind of eyeball it. But pin your zipper tape, lay this out. And you're going to come up through your center, your waist seam. I like to go ahead and pin through the seam allowances so they don't, you know, want to get stuck. Okay, now you're going to go put the zipper foot on, on your machine, and you're going to zip along here. Now this is what you've got. Okay, really easy. Don't overthink it. I'll meet you at the table. Okay, this that we're about to do right now is the trickiest part. Well, second trickiest part. But we are going to unzip the zipper. Okay, your zipper is face down. See how I have this little thing loose here? This has to get over there. And it has to be right sides together. And the raw edges have to match. In order for all that to happen, this is all you do. You flip, see how I'm rotating, boom, one time, and then flip again. So now you've got this little twisty little bit here, which looks scary, but it shouldn't be. Our raw edges are together. And everything is right sides together. Okay. Now normally I would use the top edge of my dress to measure. I don't have that because my zipper is too long. So I'm actually going to zip this back up. And at the, what's it called? Empire waist seam. I'm going to put a little snip here. Boom. It's baby. It's baby snip. And then at the top of the dress, I'm going to do another one up there. That way, when I unzip this, I have some guides. Okay. So again, this is the free one. Flip once, flip twice. That's it. Okay. Lay this down. Find your snippety-doodles. And you're also going to be stitching from here to here this time. So when you put your pins in, you know, put them in facing that way. Okay. Now that I've got this where I know it needs to go, I'm going to rotate this because it's easier for me being a right-handed person to do it this way. So now this is facing me. Okay. Now where's that other little snip? She's right there. Okay. So that's going to get lined up right there. Okay. And I know that if these two snips are at the right places, then when I zip this up, I'll have an even seam line and an even like top line of my dress. Whatever happens below that, I don't, I mean, I definitely care, but I don't care as much. If this has to be a little bit eased in, it's fine. All that really matters is these horizontal lines because that's what your eye is going to see. Okay. Let's all say a wish and a prayer and send up good vibes for all of our zippers to look bomb when we're done. Okay. So dropping it here, drop down a little bit longer stitch length. And where are my snips? One snip is a baby snip off. So that will matter. Like 16th of an inch will just show up out of nowhere and you're like, how did that happen? So I'm going to yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. That looks good. And now I just need to make sure that this also stays in. Okay. This feels good to me. And again, you can pretty much baste that if you want just to make sure and then we zip it up. That looks pretty darn good to me. Obviously we need to stitch a little bit closer to the seam lines, but as long as these things are looking good now, they will in the end as well. So I can finish installing the zipper and then go back with the shorter stitch length and get a little bit closer to the tape. Okay. Moment of truth. Oh yeah. Look at that. Oh my gosh. Easily the best one I've done on the first try ever ever in my life ever. Okay. So now we've got to contend with the, you know, bottom opening of your skirt. So turn your dress inside out. Okay. Find the center back of your dress where the zipper is below the zipper. You have, you know, an opening. Match up your, those notches where the zipper is supposed to end and then pull this guy as far out of the way as you possibly can, keeping everything kind of even. This is just fiddly. It's not difficult. It's just, you've got to smoosh some things around and make sure that underneath, you know, nothing's, it's just, you'll see as you get doing it. So just make sure this is out of the way and that your raw edges are even and you're going to pin right there. Okay. Everything's out of the way. Looking flat, looking gorgeous. Okay. So where we stopped stitching right there, we're going to start stitching again just to the very outside of that. We're going to come down here still with our zipper foot on, come down, backstitch and then pass your zipper tape, I don't know, by about an inch or so. You know, just clear that area pretty good and then switch back to your regular foot and then you can sew up the rest of your center back seam. Okay, you guys, that is going to conclude this portion of the sew-along. We have something that looks a lot like a dress. We're getting very, very close. Come back for the next video, we're going to tackle the hem facing, which I'm actually super excited about. I love the hem facing. It's just such a nice finish. And so yeah, I'll see you back for that.