Welcome back to day 3 girlies! For those of you that finished up the First Look yesterday I hope you are in love with your new Cricket and are back for more! For those of you just joining me - so glad you are here and can't wait to get started on the Second Look!
If you are joining me for the first time, check out these other 3 posts to catch up:
Today we are going to start on the Second Look.
The Second Look - once again, this is a Cricket dress with an elastic waist. However, this time we will be using the lining and the dress to create an elastic casing for the waist with a buttonhole to give access to the elastic to create a bow for the front of the dress. This version is ideal for voile, a lightweight cotton, knit and also quilters cotton - although the lighter the cotton the better. You can certainly use a poly crepe or rayon challis for this dress as well, but you would want to be sure to use a lightweight fabric for your bow as well as not to weigh the dress down too much.
Main difference from the pattern - we will be adding length to the bottom of the lining to create the casing. We will also add a buttonhole to the front of the dress to allow for the bow on the front. So, don't cut your lining yet!
The other difference - I
recommend adding a few inches to the bottom hem of the dress since you
are now going to be pulling it in at the waist. There is a tutorial
included in the pattern on how to add length to a curved hem. It is on
page 28. Go ahead and mark it down in history that the girl behind BG is
actually adding length to a dress FOR A SECOND TIME IN A WEEK. I have quite the reputation for my
shorter dresses. ;) I think I added 3 or 4 inches for the 2 I did Lou,
but the next one I make I may only add 2 since I prefer a dress above
the knee.
Extra materials needed:
- Elastic. I
prefer to use 3/8" to 1/2" elastic and as I said before I am a slave to
Stretch Rite. It really is the best elastic out there in my opinion.
You will need about an inch less than your child's waist
measurement. Now, this casing is going to be about 1.5" wide, but we need the elastic to be small enough to pull through a 1" buttonhole.
- Fabric for the bow. Honestly, you can so pull this out of one of your scrap piles. Listen, it is okay. We all know we have them. I could probably clothe an entire city of American Girl dolls just from my scrap pile. Remember, when it comes to my sewing room I become a hoarder. But you will need a piece that is about 5-6" tall by about 40" wide (the bow I made was 5.5" tall by selvage width).
Alrighty then - let's get started on our Second Look!
First we need to determine where the waist of our dress is going to be. The best thing to do is to measure your child to determine where it should be. If you have your kiddo handy - you get brownie points. However, since most of us sew while our children are either away or sleeping, we probably don't have a kiddo to measure. I winged it for the First Look and the odds were totally in my favor which made me super pumped. Since it worked then, I used the same for the Second Look. What you want to measure
is from the underarm to where the waist should be. If you find yourself
in my same predicament, you can also grab something out of their closet
that has a dropped waist to determine best placement. My measurement is 5". Please don't get that mixed up with yours!
Once you have a measurement, grab the pattern piece for your dress front. I will have you create a new lining pattern piece here. Don't worry - you've totally got this and it isn't hard, but since we are lengthening the lining, I find it is easier to start from scratch. Measure down from the bottom of the arm curve the amount you measured for the waist. In my case, I measured down 5". Make a mark, which is the red dot.
Now, add 1" to your measurement and make another dot. For my example, I made a dot (yellow) at 6" as well.
Draw a line that is perpendicular to the fold at both of these measurements. The red line is your waist line and the yellow line will be where you will cut your lining. I promise this will all make sense soon.
Guess what, you just drafted a new lining piece. See how awesome you are? Now what you want to do is to trace that piece (black dotted lines) on a new piece of tracing paper to use as the front lining piece.
Now, repeat what you just did for the back dress piece as well to create a new lining piece for the back. A tip for a little time saving so you can get sewing before the kids get home/wake up/need your attention...to make the back lining piece, just place your back pattern piece over your front pattern piece lining up the shoulders and arm curves and just trace from the lines you made on the front piece. This ensures you cut both the exact same. :)
Once you have both the front and back lining pieces drafted, send me your resumes go ahead and cut your front and back lining with the new lining pieces.
The biggest difference (besides the extra length) is that these lining pieces no longer have a curve to the bottom like they did on the original pattern. This is intentional. Promise. Now, if you have a fabric that is going to fray, go ahead and finish the bottoms of the lining. I used knit, so I am going to leave it be, plus I do a little house-cleaning later along the bottom, so you may want to read ahead to see if you want to finish it just yet. ;)
Once you have your lining pieces cut, we can focus on the rest of the cuts to make:
- dress front and back - remember to add a bit of length to account for the elastic waist cinching the dress up higher.
- sleeves - same as pattern (unless you are adding/removing length)
Now, to add that pretty bow to our Second Look, let's get on to the business of placing a buttonhole on the front of the dress. This is where you want to use your brain and pay attention. I am going to draw it out first so you have a visual before you go and start marking and buttonholing. :)
We are going to place a buttonhole (black line) centered over the waist (red line, my 5") but not reaching further than the lining piece (the yellow line, my 6").
Clear as mud, right?
Good. Now, that we are all on the same page - let's measure out the spot for our buttonhole. I like to keep my front piece on the fold with right sides facing up. Measure over about 3" on your waist line and place a pin. Notice that I have the lines drawn on my dress front, those are just to demonstrate. Unless you have an awesome fabric marker that you know will come out - don't follow my example! I had Photoshop on my side. ;) Now, I placed my buttonhole at 4" over for this dress when I made it and I must admit I don't like how far over it is, so for the sew along I changed it to 3". However, this is where you get to play designer - do what you think looks best! Basically you want it off-centered on the front. :)
Once you have your buttonhole spot pinned, grab your machine's
buttonhole foot. This buttonhole needs to be an inch at most. Since we
will place it vertically on the waistline, you want it no taller
than 1" or else you will run into trouble down the road when it comes to
sewing your casing. So, set your buttonhole foot either by measuring out the guide at the top or by throwing a 1" button in the guide.
Now, before we go making holes - let's do more work to mark the actual spot for the buttonhole. What you want to do is to make the exact spot of where your hole should be. Remember, my ruler says 4" away from the fold, but yall pretend like it is 3". You live and you learn when you sew!
Place a pin at both the top and bottom of where you want your buttonhole to go. Make sure to center it on the waistline. So basically you should mark 1/2" above the waistline and then 1/2" below the waistline (the green marks) so that your 1" buttonhole is centered.
Now, take your dress over to the machine and stitch that buttonhole in place. If you feel your fabric needs some interfacing to bulk it up for this buttonhole, go for it! It certainly will not hurt. I have yet to add interfacing in the sewing room and regret it later. When in doubt, interface. Once stitched, place a pin through the top of the buttonhole and grab your seam ripper to open. If you are new to BG - one area I don't take a shortcut is when opening buttonholes. Please place a pin so you don't rip all the way through it! I have done it once and honestly watching my seam ripper laugh at me and the pins on my magnet taunting me saying "I told you so" was enough. Never again for the girl behind BG.
Now, the front of your dress should look something like this. ;)
I was just looking back and feel silly that I have so many pictures for one small step, but then again - hopefully they all make sense. And we don't have wonky buttonholes! Oh and I don't want to type the word "buttonhole" again for a few days. Haaaa.
Now for a little construction. Carry on with dress construction just as you would in the pattern tutorial from pages 7-15. This has you attaching the lining and finishing off the neck and keyhole. Once finished and turned right side, take your dress to a flat surface and lay it lining side up. Take your time here and line up the lining front with the dress front all along the arm curves. Before we make the casing we HAVE to make sure that the lining is secure to the front. I place pins all along the bottom of the lining, up the sides and at the bottoms of the arm curves. Then, repeat with lining and dress back.
Once you have the linings pinned in place to the dress front and back, place dress front and back right sides together just to make sure that your linings line up on the side.
This is just an extra step to make sure that everything is meshing together. When we go to do the casing it is important that the front and back are on the same page if you know what I mean. Now, go ahead and baste stitch the lining to dress along the arm curve as shown on page 16 of the pattern. This will save your sanity down the road.
Place your Cricket front right sides up and put a pin through the top and the bottom of the buttonhole (green lines below). Make sure the pin goes through the lining. We are going to flip the dress over and use this as a guide in just a bit.
Flip the dress over so that the front lining is facing right sides up on your flat surface (PS - do you giggle as often as I do when I refer to a flat surface. I mean what IS that in a sewing room? Haaaa, anything flat is covered in hoopla at all times in my sewing room). You should be able to see where your buttonhole top and bottom is (green lines) by the pins. If not, flip over and pin again. You need these directional makers!
Now, we are going to use those marks to make our elastic casing lines. You are going to make 2 lines. One above the buttonhole and one below. Both of these lines need to be 1/4" off of the buttonhole marker. So, grab your ruler and a fabric marker (since this is on the lining, it wont show so honestly use whatever is handy that you can see to sew later) and make a line 1/4" above the buttonhole (purple) and 1/4" below the buttonhole (brown). Make sure those lines run parallel with the bottom of the lining. Also, I went ahead and added the red dashed line to mark our original waist line in case you were wondering where that came in to play.
This is what mine looks like on the inside without all of the photoshop lines.
Okay - now that the front casing marked, it is time to mark the back casing. To mark the back lining you can totally measure and duplicate along the back. However, I feel it is a little easier and better to keep the same if you just make the marks for your back lining pieces from your front. To do so, place the dress front and back right sides together making sure to match up the arm curves and sides. When done, pinch the lining pieces together along the side as shown below and using the marks from the front lining piece, make marks on your back lining piece for both the top (purple) and bottom (brown) casing line.
Make sure to mark both sides of the dress.
Once you have both elastic casing lines marked on each side of the back lining piece, all you need to do is connect the dots, la, la, la, la!
Okay ladies - you are past the hardest parts of the Second Look. Rock on girls. And honestly you probably see now how there are so many words for just a few steps. Hello, party of run my mouth too much here! Now, take your dress over to the sewing machine and stitch both lines of the casing on both the front and back lining/dress. Stitch all the way across as we will be inserting elastic from the sides.
Now for the housekeeping I was telling you about earlier. I ended up with about 1/2" of lining fabric below the casing. I decided to clip that close just to decrease the amount of extra fabric. Since I was sewing knit, there was no need to finish that edge - but if you wanted to clip and finish, you can do that as well.
We have had a very busy day so far - so let me get to a stopping point. The only thing left to do for the first day is to attach the sleeves. This will be done exactly as it is laid out in the pattern tutorial. However, STOP before you go to sew the underneath of the sleeve and the side seams (middle of page 19). We will need to insert elastic into the casing before you go stitching the sides. So, just attach the sleeves but leave those side seams open...until tomorrow my dearys!
Have questions, want to share pics or get opinions? Post to the
brownie-goose lovers group on facebook. I promise that today I will pay attention to the right group to look for questions. Haaaa!
Same place, same time tomorrow ladies to continue working on the Second Look!
