Trim tribulations

As I hinted last week, I have decided to perk up my not-quite-right Riviera dress by adding a trim of ruched ribbon around the neckline. So I duly set off to my local fabric shop, leftover piece of dress fabric in hand, to look at the ribbons available. There were lots of them. I looked at blues, pinks, golds, and even white, but nothing was quite right. Then on a separate stand I spotted some double-faced satin ribbons, including one which was dark green on one side and pale green on the other. The darker shade was just right.

After some experimenting, I decided to position the trim ⅝" in from the neckline - which is the same measurement as the width of the ribbon. I ran a line of basting stitches round the neckline to mark the position.

Trim position marked with orange thread

Then I ran tiny gathering stitches along each edge of the ribbon, pulled them up, and started sewing the trim onto the dress by oversewing the edges in place. I had to keep alternating between the top and bottom edges.

Even this much took some time

It quickly became obvious that this is going to be a long job. It's very tricky to keep the gathers even on the straight section, and round the curves will be even harder. Right now, I don't want to devote a lot of time to something which I won't wear for months. So, the dress is now on a hanger in my workroom, to be picked up whenever I feel like tackling a bit more.

Then I went back to another part-done project which has also been on a hanger for ages, Butterick 7598. The next job on this was to work out where the two lower bands of sleeve trim should go. This involved pinning them in place with an educated guess, trying the dress on, marking with pins where changes were needed, re-pinning the trim, trying the dress on again, basting the trim down once I was happy, trying the dress on again, more marking pins, unpicking some of the basting, redoing it, trying the dress on yet again - and all the while forgetting to take any photos!

Sleeve trim basted on - finally

Once I was satisfied that the trim was in the right place, I could undo the basting that holds the dress together. It's interesting to see that what look like parallel trim bands when the dress is worn are actually far from parallel on the flat sleeve pieces. The next job is to tidy up the rather wonky basting, and then machine the trim in place.

The bands are further apart at the back

It’s just as well that I am fully committed to slow sewing!