Hi Everyone! I hope you've taken some time to explore the Aussie color palette and get a sense of the fashion styling to capture the overall essence of this theme. In Part Two, we continue the sew-along for the Alice Springs Dress. In the third video of the sew-along, we will be working on sewing the collar to the dress bodice. This is the trickiest bit of the pattern assembly, mostly because of the scale, but with a bit of practice and attention to detail, it all goes together nicely!
If you haven't started your project yet, please refer back to part one to get familiar with the pattern, choose your fabric, and sew up the bodice front and front placket.
Are you ready to continue? Let's go!
In this video, we will sew the collar to the dress bodice. The collar has been cut with 4 pieces of fabric. In our demonstration we have the printed fashion fabric (cut 2) and the solid lining fabric (cut 2). The solid colored fabric will be referred to as the collar facing.
To begin I recommend stay stitching the bodice neckline just inside the 1/4" seam allowance stitching line. Then clip into the seam allowance to be able to spread it open to match the curve of the collar.
The most important thing with the collar is to place it properly along the neckline. The shoulder notch is key! Place this first lining up with the shoulder seam of the bodice. The two pieces curve in opposite directions, which may seem incorrect; but with a bit of stay stitching and clipping into the seam allowance, the pieces fit together as intended.
Continue to line up the seam line towards center back. Here you will see a 1/4" extended overlap. Then line up the seamline towards center front, carefully spreading the bodice seam allowance open to curve along the collar piece. When you reach center front there will be excess extending past CF. Because the collar at center front angles in slightly, the over lap is close to 1/2" at the raw edge of the seam allowance. This is fine! You'll notice that when you fold the collar up away from the bodice that you will lose quite a bit of that overlap as you get to the interior neckline edge. You need to be able to sew a 1/4" seam allowance up CF and along the top edge of the collar, so just double check that there is space to do that at center front before stitching the collar in place.
Too much excess at center front is better than not enough here!
Next, we trim that seam allowance to reduce bulk in this tiny collar interior. Then the collar facing (with bottom edge pressed under along the larger curve) is placed right on top of it and stitched from center back across the interior neckline edge and down to center front. Be sure to stitch at a 1/4" seam allowance and be sure that the seam allowances are pointing up towards the collar at CF and CB so that they turn to the inside when the collar is turned right side out. This collar is designed to be pretty small to fit with the overall scale of the design.
Tip: You can draw a line on the wrong side of the fabric to be sure you stitch this properly, especially at CF. The two CF edges should be the same as each other, it will be pretty obvious if they are not because they sit almost side-by-side. Alternately, you can count your stitches as you pivot at CF and then stitch the same on the opposite side.
I'd recommend turning the collar right side out at CF before trimming the seam allowances just to be sure the two CF's match. If they don't you can try to even it out while you still have the full piece.
Once everything looks good, trim those seam allowances and turn the collar right side out.
Okay! You did it! How does it look?
Now continue with the pattern instructions to finish the stitching on the neckline, sew the elastic casing on the sleeves, set the sleeves, and sew the dress bodice side seams.
Next week in part three we will continue with the tiered ruffle section and finish up the dress! We'll also explore the full Kira Bailey™ collection and share with you thoughts and ideas to sew up a variety of pieces using Pixie Faire patterns to capture that Aussie Theme!
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