Purple Passion--The Front

Time for construction of the dress. I'll start with the front.


The question has been asked as to how I'm going to keep all that smocking from falling apart once I cut out the neck and armholes. Excellent question. I laid the front bodice guide on the front and tried several methods of marking around the pattern piece, to wit:







I tried blue washable marker, chalk, chalk pencil, and regular pencil. No luck. I finally went and found a dry sliver of white soap. This always works on dark fabric. But not if it's smocked! It simply wanted to stretch, not play nice and mark. So I finally pinned the pattern securely and machine stitched with regular stitch length around the outlines. I did not stitch through the pattern, just skinnied right up next to it:






Then I removed the pattern piece and went back around it, basting about 1/4" inside the first line of stitching. This will keep the seam allowances nice and flat during construction. If you look closely, you can make out the two rows of stitching here:



Here's a close up photo of the wrong side:



Then I cut right outside the first line of stitching. The finished front:

On to the back!