boning

Holiday season has started and it means Party!!! Have you thought about your party dress for the holidays? Mine is going to be a velvet and polka dot tulle Seda Dress. And while sewing it, I took pictures of the minor changes I made in order to show you some variations you might want to try on your own version of the Seda dress.
So today, we’ll see how to add boning to the Off-the-shoulder version, View A.

View A of the Seda dress emphasizes the shoulders and neckline, I think it’s very sensual and quite sexy if you ask me. The dress is designed to work without added structure but depending on your fabric and your bust size, you may feel more comfortable adding boning to the bodice of the Seda dress View A.If your fabric is light and doesn’t have enough body, I would recommend adding an underlining. To underline the bodice, you can use muslin fabric, cotton batiste or silk organza (choosing the right underlining will depend on your fashion fabric, underlining should always be lighter in weight). Cut the bodice pieces out the underlining and transfer all the markings (you don’t need to mark the main fabric). Baste the fashion fabric and the underlining together, you can then use them as one piece.

Underlining will help structure the bodice of the dress, it will also prevent darts to be seen from the right side if your fabric is very light and will minimize wrinkles. And for our purpose, it will prevent to boning to show throught this double layers of fabric.So now on to the boning!

There are different types of boning, here the ones you’re most likely to find at your notion store:

Plastic boning. Sold by the meter/yard.
Steel boning. Either flat or spiral like in the above picture. Usually sold in precut length.
Rigilene boning. Can be stitch directly on fabric. Sold by the meter/yard.You’ll need approximatively two 28 cm (11″) boning for the front bodice and two 26 (10 1/2″) for the back, both about 1 cm wide (3/8″).

If you’re using plastic or steel boning, you’ll also need 1,10 meter (1 yd 1 ft) of bias binding, wider than your boning. So if you’re using a 1 cm boning, a 1,5 cm wide bias binding will leave enough room for the boning to move a little bit (attention, you don’t want it to move too much either).Plastic and steel boning insertionOn this illustration, you’ll see how to apply boning to the Seda dress bodice.

-Cut your bodice pieces from your lining fabric and stitch the darts on the front and back pieces. Press them as indicated in the instructions.

-Place the bias binding on the wrong side of the lining and pin it over the waist darts, going up to the neckline. Fold the top end of the binding to the wrong side. Make sure the top edge of the binding is below the neckline seam allowance (make it stop about 2 cm (3/4″) below the edge so it won’t get caught when you sew the lining to the main fabric).
-Stitch along the edge of the bias binding, going up and down, stitching very very close to the edges.
-Insert boning into the channel you created with the bias binding. Make sure your boning stops about 2 cm (3/4″) above the waistline edge. Stitch the bottom edge of the bias binding to prevent boning from moving.Rigilene boning insertionWith Rigilene boning, you’re going to pin the boning directly on the wrong side of the lining over the darts, as explained for the bias binding previously. You can melt both ends of the Rigilene so it won’t punch through the fabric (or stitch a piece of fabric over the ends). Make sure the boning stop about 2 cm (3/4″) from the neckline and waistline edges.
Stitch over the boning, on each side.Now you are ready to follow the Seda dress instructions just as they come.

Let me know if you have a question.

Next week I’ll show you how to add lining to View B of the Seda dress + some tips on sewing with velvet..

If you’re like me, when you see a garment you like on the internet, you want to know how it’s made. There is nothing more frustating than finding the perfect dress or skirt and having no idea of what pattern was used or good enough pictures to figure it out. What I love are blogs with construction pictures, that way, even if I don’t have the pattern, I can try to make something similar. If only I did that! But everytime I try to take pictures of the construction, I forget and keep on sewing until it’s almost finished… Do what I say, not what I do 🙂

Ok, I made an effort and took pictures of the construction of the Scarlett dress, good girl!
Let’s start with the corset:

It’s made of heavy muslin (or coutil in the corset world). I am pretty happy with it being my first corset but I would make some changes for the next one. I wasn’t able to find spiral metal boning in any notion stores in Valencia so I had to use plastic boning. Not bad for a night but I don’t think it would be confortable for a longer time. Nor was I able to find a busk to close and open the front. So I have to lace it open everytime I want to wear it.

The pattern is made from my measurements and is amazing. I found it here, the fit is perfect and it’s very easy to follow and make, you just need a piece of paper, a ruler and a calculator. The same girl also has a tutorial on how to sew the corset here. I didn’t make the same flat-felt seams, just regular seams with slip-in-the-ditch to create boning channels.

I didn’t have metal grommets so I sewed them by hand like small buttonholes. Took me a whole movie, not so bad…

Here is the hoop-skirt: the most important part of the costume as it support the whole dress. The volume depends of how many hoops you add and the width. Here is how I made mine:

Now the underskirt: you need it to cover the hoop skirt and smooth the boning lines. It’s very simple to make: gather a big rectangle of fabric! For example, mine is 4 meters wide (it has to be wider than the hoop skirt, important). I made a small gathered flounce at the bottom (6 meters x 20 cm) and sew it to the big piece. I also made a separate waistband so it would be easier to gather the ribbon around my waist to close the skirt.

scarlett-dress-construction-sewing-pattern-9

I also found this pattern on the internet but I think it’s out of print. Maybe you can find it on ebay or etsy.

And for the umbrella, I found the recover tutorial here. I had a vintage umbrella from the 20’s with a broken fabric so I decided to recover it. It’s not difficult to do and it’s a great way to customize an old umbrella.

I hope it was useful and that you enjoyed it. If you’re still reading, sorry, this has to be the longest post ever 🙂 If you have any questions, just ask in the comment section, I’d be happy to help.

Have a nice week end!

Seda Dress Tutorial: Adding Boning to View A – Off-the-shoulder version

Scarlett Dress: the construction