starter princess seam dress tutorial
This detailed sew-a-long tutorial will help you create the perfect fitting dress.
This tutorial expands on the basic pattern instructions to help with fitting steps, clever sewing hacks, personalized adjustments, and how to spot your construction errors early.
This dress is the perfect everyday dress, timeless and comfortable. Sizes from 32″ bust up to a 64 inch bust.
It can also be used as a base for a thousand variations. Here we show step by step how to get your core dress fitting perfectly, along with the techniques and methods to produce a well-fitting long lasting garment.
The core dress can be made sleeves or with with sleeves, short, elbow, three quarter, and full length.
The boodice can be long waisted or a high, (not quite empire) waistline, which is often more flattering for larger sizes, the natural waistline will tend to sit higher as the body becomes curvier.
It has cutting lines for a soft v-neck and a square low neckline. We will show in future expansion releases the many ways you can change the neckline and add collars, cuffs, pleats, lacing detail, buttons, wrap styles, and more complex variations to help you build your skills to confidently make so many dresses suitable for all occasions.
We often talk about creating your own personalized body sloper.
Its really the one thing everyone should do to compare all their new sewing patterns to before they start a project.
If ten ladies that say they take the same dress size were to actually line up and get measured the variation between them will still be very noticeable. shoulder slopes, body length, back width, bicep size, bust size, bust height and fullness, waist level, There are so many variations.
If you have not made yourself a sloper yet we have a full range of sloper patterns available free as part of our newsletter sign-up.
If you want to dive straight into this pattern, please make at least one mock up, where you can make any your fitting adjustments before you cut into your expensive fabric.
We suggest you make your mock-up from a mid-weight non-stretch fabric, bed sheets or duvet covers are perfect, but choose cotton and poly cotton if possible. Natural fiber fabrics are so much easier to work with for novice sewists, make life easy if you are new to sewing and make your first dresses in cotton or cotton mix.
Our sloper fabrics are stiffly starched muslin, they can almost stand up on their own, but it’s perfect for the job.
This brings us to why we don’t include the seam allowance on the vintage patterns or this starter pattern, We want you to learn just how easy it is to hack patterns and alter the fit. This is so much easier when the pattern you start with does not have seam allowances already included.
For all the novice sewists, this a quick reminder that it’s very important to make sure your pattern pieces are correctly aligned with the grain even for your mock-up.
A badly placed pattern cut off the grain may cause the whole garment to distort and spoil the sewing experience and the finished dress. The whole concept of fabric grain can be strange to new sewists. click here to see the basic principle.
A homemade spray starch is something all my family swears by, either made with cornflour or vodka and water – it makes the fabric just stiff enough to make sewing easier and washes out easily.
Always stay stitch the curved edges,
Reduce the stitch length for the sections that will be clipped such as the v of the neckline.
Standard stay stitching can be length 3. reduce to 1 for the inside corners, lapel points, belt ends, etc.
This sew-a-long will use s simple cotton floral cotton poplin for the main fabric with contrasting green cotton lining.
The fabric and lining for the bodice have been lightly starched before the pattern pieces are cut out.
The edges are pinked rather than serged.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
The following four pictures show this process in detail.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
Observe that the outside curve is much more curved than the inside curve.
This piece is a H cup so its more exaggerated than a smaller bust cup size.
The green line along the edge of seam allowance is longer on the inside curve (side panel) than the green line on the inside curve (center panel).
The red lines are the same length. So you need to ease the two pieces together for a perfectly aligned seam.
We are using the green lining fabric in this pic as its easier to see the nip on plain fabric.
Snip cuts into the seam allowance up to the stay stitching every 12 to 15mm (1/2″).
Pin and sew the seam, with the outside curve on the bottom, easing the inside curve center panel around the curve. Sew slowly.
As you can see in this pic, the cuts allow the outer edge to open up as you join the seam.
Press the curved seam open over a tailor’s ham, padded sleeve board or rolled-up towel if you don´t have a ham.
Repeat for the lining.
Repeat for the center back and side back pieces and their linings.
when pressing a curved seam, if the fabric is very delicate, or you need to use very hot iron, cut a curved piece of card with the shape as same and place it between the seam allowance when you press so the seamline does not make an impression on the right side of your fabric.
Repeat for the outside curve, pressing to smooth and fit the excess seam allowance to give a perfect wrinkle-free curved seam.
when pressing a curved seam, if the fabric is very delicate, or you need to use very hot iron, cut a curved piece of card with the shape as same and place it between the seam allowance when you press so the seamline does not make an impression on the right side of your fabric.
Repeat for the outside curve, pressing to smooth and fit the excess seam allowance to give a perfect wrinkle-free curved seam.
when pressing a curved seam, if the fabric is very delicate, or you need to use very hot iron, cut a curved piece of card with the shape as same and place it between the seam allowance when you press so the seamline does not make an impression on the right side of your fabric.
Repeat for the outside curve, pressing to smooth and fit the excess seam allowance to give a perfect wrinkle-free curved seam.
when pressing a curved seam, if the fabric is very delicate, or you need to use very hot iron, cut a curved piece of card with the shape as same and place it between the seam allowance when you press so the seamline does not make an impression on the right side of your fabric.
Repeat for the outside curve, pressing to smooth and fit the excess seam allowance to give a perfect wrinkle-free curved seam.
when pressing a curved seam, if the fabric is very delicate, or you need to use very hot iron, cut a curved piece of card with the shape as same and place it between the seam allowance when you press so the seamline does not make an impression on the right side of your fabric.
Repeat for the outside curve, pressing to smooth and fit the excess seam allowance to give a perfect wrinkle-free curved seam.
Press the seam allowance back on the centre back of the dress if you are going to insert an invisible zip.
By having a crisp pressed line it makes sewing the zip easier and more accurate.
Do not press the lining back as it will be sewn in a slightly different position.
Pin and join the shoulder seams. Press seams open.
Repeat for the lining.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
The first method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
The alternative method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice skirt pieces, both skirt back and skirt front to the bodice along the waistline seams, BEFORE you turn through the shoulder seams.
Be aware this method is only suitable for lightweight fabrics where half the back skirt will easily fit through the gap in the shoulder seam. Most lightweight cotton will ease through the gap, but heavy wools or brocades may be tricky.
The seams are sewn last from the lining across the underarm seam and down the skirt sides.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
The method for a sleeveless dress is to sew the bodice lining to the main fabric along the armholes and neckline, then trim the seam allowance to half its width if desired, clip all the curved seams and neckline then turn through by pulling the back section through the shoulder seam section.
Ease all the curved shapes and check it is sitting neatly at corners and armholes with no pulling or wrinkling then press.
Always mark the zip level at the waistline and check its perfectly aligned on both sides.
Make sure the waistline seam is turned upwards.
Trim 3-4mm (1/4″) from the centre back edge of the lining,
Pin, baste and sew the lining to the zipper and main bodice center back.
There will be a slight gap along the back neck edge as the lining is slightly shorter than the main bodice. This will make the lining lay flat when turned back through.
Always mark the zip level at the waistline and check its perfectly aligned on both sides.
Make sure the waistline seam is turned upwards.
Always mark the zip level at the waistline and check its perfectly aligned on both sides.
Make sure the waistline seam is turned upwards.
