Olivia's Prom Gown, Part 4: I need my mommy and I don't care who knows it!

My pretty Mom removing sequins from the skirt pieces in preparation for sewing up the skirt. 

As I had never sewn with sequins before, I did some research. There are a few rules when sewing sequined fabric:

1. you MUST remove all the sequins from the seam line and the seam allowance- this means clipping each sequin off on every seam allowance, and if you aren't lucky, you'll have to hand stitch the sequins that border the seam lines in place so they don't fall off. 

Well, I guess there is only one rule. It's a pretty darn big rule. 

Luckily, our sequined fabric had individually sewn sequins- which means that no handstiching sequins in place afterward. BUT since we had to remove the sequins in the seam line, and even more past the seam line, my mom is going to have to fill in all the blank spots around the seam lines:

 See the blank spots on the back darts of the dress? I had to remove all those when I sewed in those darts, and now my mom has to go in and fill all that space in. Yes, sewing with sequins is hard, but it is GORGE. 

oh, another rule I just though of:

2. Use paper scissors when cutting out your sequin fabric. To jack up your nice Gingher scissors while cutting through tiny plastic glittery pieces. 

Cutting out the skirt pieces. Those arches in the pattern are for the godets. More about that later.

Since the gown's lining was a silk, and the sequin fabric is a knit, I knew I couldn't just cut out the skirt pattern for the sequins, sew it up, and it would fit perfectly. Instead, I draped the skirt pieces onto Liv to get the right fit, and then altered the sequin pieces from there. It was hard to do, yes, but this way I got the correct fit. 

See those wrinkles? Those aren't good. That's where the darts came in. I pinned them in while Live was still wearing it, handed it to my mom to de-sequin, and then sewed the darts up, to get, once again, this image of a perfectly fitting skirt, with darts to boot:

No wrinkles= good. Once the skirt was draped, I pin marked where my seam lines were, and my mom and I continued to de-sequin for what felt like the span of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (actually we watched a ton of Gilmore Girls to pass the time). 


Tomorrow will bring you, Part 5: The Sleeves


Part 3: The Muslin
Part 2: The Fabric
Part 1: The Inspiration