Ginger Made: Lady Lonsdale

ERTUIJGDFIGDIRHGOARHGOJGS!!!!!  I just typed up a lovely post detailing the construction of my Lonsdale dress, added photos and links, clicked “publish”, and… a six-word post appeared with no sign of the glorious original anywhere.  Sigh. Alright.  Take 2.

On the plus side, I’m finally finished with something!  Meet Lady Lonsdale!

She's a little loud, no?

She’s a saucy little number from Sewaholic Patterns, and I think we’re in love!  As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I’m not a fan of prints and I definitely never wear florals, but I really like this dress.  Even if I feel really… conspicuous… in it.

Seriously, I look like I escaped from the set of "Hawaii Five-0"!

Construction was smooth sailing thanks to Tasia’s mega-helpful sew-along posts.  Seriously, if you’re a beginner or you’re at all on the fence about this dress, just look through these posts.  It couldn’t be easier to put together a dress (well, maybe if I had a sewing fairy to whisper helpful advice about every project)!

I'm a fancy lady! I can curtsy and everything!

I added bust padding using Sunni’s tutorial (it was a bit tedious, but mostly due to my idiocy), and I used an invisible zipper instead of a regular one.  I followed Tasia’s advice and used the fabric selvages as a substitute for Stay-Tape to help stop the bodice from stretching out.  I also did a swayback adjustment, so my waistband is nice and straight all the way around– yay!  The only issue I had was that the waistband was about an inch and a half shorter than the bodice and the skirt pieces.  I’m still not sure how this happened, but I shaved off 5/8″ on either side and the whole thing fits perfectly now.  Whew!  I’m pretty sure I got lucky.

All tied up with a bow, like a gift to myself!

I’m not going to show you the inside of the dress as it turned out a bit sloppier than I had hoped.  I used French seams on the skirt’s side seams, but due to my tinkering to make the waistband fit, I ended up just zigzagging the center and back seams.  Also, I made an annoying mistake– instead of stitching just the outer waistband to the skirt, I sewed both waistbands to it together, and I trimmed the seam allowance before I noticed that I was supposed to slipstitch the inner waistband down.  This would have been super neat and tidy, but alas!  I had to zigzag the raw edges instead.

Overall, though, I feel like I learned a lot from the project and from the sew-along!  I definitely recommend this pattern– I just wish there was more summer weather left for me to wear it!

What are you guys working on?  How are your projects coming along?

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