Chemise put together

[breakinglight11]

Finished the basic construction of the chemise, meaning that all the major seams are done and all the pieces are put together. It is somewhat less ugly now that it is closer to being complete, so for this picture I turned it right side out so you can roughly see what it's supposed to look like in the end.
 

Next step is the finishing up the edges, which entail sewing casings to hold pieces of elastic. I'm starting to think I bought elastic that is too think for everywhere but the hemline-- it's a full inch thick. What I want is for the fabric to gather around the hem, collar, and cuffs, and I'm getting nervous that it's not going to come out right. valleyviolet suggested I put a facing on the collar instead of trying to fold over that uneven line into a casing, which I may do if that would help it gather better. If anyone has any further suggestions, it would be much appreciated. I guess I'll just have to give it a try and see how it comes out. I don't have anything to do tonight, so I think I will see what I can accomplish with that free time. Wish me luck!

Comments

[laurion]

One common method in the garb circles is to get some relatively small ribbon, and to sew that into the hem, so you can gather the cuffs and, in this case, waist, with that and then just tie a bow in the ribbon to hold it gathered. Effective, and a nice little decorative element too.

Collars are sometimes just gathered around a loop of ribbon, and sewn shut so they are permanently gathered. And once something like that is gathered, it tends to completely hide any unevenness in the hemming.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds perfect. I think I'll try that! Thanks!

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

There are many things you can do - valleyviolet and laurion all have good suggestions. All the options have their pros and cons, however:

- The facing: the pro is you will get a more finished look, and you won't have elastic bunching up anywhere unsightly or uncomfortable. It is probably a more difficult solution than you're thinking, as you'll have to sew gathering stitches into the hems first (basically a loose stitch with long tails that you can pull on to control how and where the fabric is gathered - this is much easier to do with a machine!), and then sew the facing to the gathered fabric. I remember this being daunting when I first learned how to do it. Also, once you've sewn in the gathering stitches, they won't move, like elastic or ribbon will.

- The ribbon: certainly this is more "authentic" than elastic, but I've seen garments sewn like this where the knot of the ribbon will disappear into the hem, or it'll get knotted up, and then you won't be able to adjust it. Picking a ribbon that is only slightly smaller than the hem casing is important here.

- Elastic: yeah, you'll probably need to buy new elastic, but elastic is cheap.

The pain-in-the-ass part of both elastic and ribbon is threading it through the hem casing. If you can, stop by Jo-Ann's or some such and pick up an easy hand tool to help you with this.

You could just make two (or three!) versions of this and see which you like better? It is fairly straightforward, especially if you can get your hands on a sewing machine.

Speaking of which... seeing as I don't need to do any buttonholes in the near future, would you like to borrow my functional but kinda crappy 1980s Singer which I only use for making buttonholes?

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

Or, better yet - if you'd like to come over on Saturday and help me clean my sewing room while Matt's off playing D&D, you can use my good sewing machine (once we've cleaned our way to it) and I can offer hands-on assistance.

[laurion]

If you go with ribbon, you can surreptitiously stitch down the middle of it into the casing so that it won't slide around too much. Then your bows won't slide into the casing at all. And captainecchi is right, you can easily try more than one solution and go with your preferred final product.

As for the tool assistance, Any thin long rod will help a lot. Just scotch tape the ribbon/elastic to on end and use that to feed it through to the other side. I've used a knitting needle, a crochet hook, or even a drinking straw. If you already have something around, don't spend the extra money at a fabric store.