Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Antique lace overlay dress --This week's ad hoc project

At first I was going to make this a two piece dress, but I just started and this is what I ended up with:



I showed you the beginnings of this on Monday.

It was pretty simple.  As I'm not a seamstress and much of it was done by hand it took me maybe about 2 hours.  (I took breaks in between -- or should I say I was interrupted :)

How I did it:
First I pinned the silk "skirt" hem.  Then I stitched a piece of lace on top of the silk.  I hand gathered the waist of the dress.  I put that aside.  For the top, I pinned a piece of silk that had the top folded over (prevent a raw edge) around Agnes.  Then using a disappearing dressmaker's marker,  I marked under the boob area to represent 2 darts.  (marker can be found in Joann's quilting section or Walmart Sewing section).  I placed the antique lace over the top, I used the opposite of the skirt (so the scalloped edge was at the top rather than the bottom.  I basted the top "hem".  I basted the lace to the silk.  I then basted the darts.  I used the sewing machine to sew the darts.  I hand stitched the lace at the top (following along the embroidery that is part of the lace so the stitches won't be seen).

At first I wanted a two piece garment, so I hemmed the tail of the top.  I was going to add a waist band to the skirt, but then I decided I would rather have a one piece dress because I wanted the waist of the skirt to be so low -- falling on the hip rather than the waist.  So, being lazy, I didn't remove the hem from the top, I just blind stitched the skirt to the top.  This did not look pretty on the wrong side.  I just added a piece of lace to finish off that seam.

Something about the dress reminds me of Wedgewood pottery.  Maybe it is the blue.  Or the blue and the off-white; or the relief of the embroidery on the lace has the raised effect similar to the designs on Wedgewood.

Very happy with this dress.  Agnes has an Alice in Wonderland quality about her when she wears it.  The color is perfect with her eyes!

4 comments:

  1. she definitely has an Agnes in Wonderland feel, very pretty!
    my favourite part are still the beaded slippers, i think they are so high fashion!

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  2. Thanks for the kind comments. I just love Agnes more and more each day! I'm trying out some new wigs (I'm in the process of making) and wow, she can look so different!

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  3. Love the dress! I didn't know yo had a doll from Terri! How wonderful! They are so lovely and you have a particularly pretty one! I am into lace lately too, looking forward to seeing what you come up with next. :)

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  4. Thanks. I'm particularly hooked to Terri's dolls! Yes, I seem to have penchant for antique lace. I have for years really. I remember traveling with my oldest daughter years ago to Paris, we went to several flea markets and the thing I looked for (and found) was old lace. I hear it is getting very scarce.

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