Making the dress.

So, here is the final product. You can see that

I usually try to stay true to the initial sketch. I added hat and working on a parasol to complete the look.

Now for the details on how I got to this point.

After cutting the garment pieces, I started assembling the dress. First I put together the front.

I work on the outside shell and the lining at the same time. This way it's all fresh and done at the same time.

The back is assembled, with zipper and hooks will be added at the end. Than its the sleeves and the collar. Once all the pieces are done I put the whole thing together.

Once it's all put together, it's time for a fitting.

As you see I use lots of pins to assemble the pieces together prior to sewing them.

I use very fine and sharp pins, which helps with the sewing, the machine's needle just slides over these pins with no problem.

The thing is that these pins are really mean. When you stick yourself with them, and you do, they hurt like a son of a bitch. I mean these fuckers don't just prick you. They stab you. Mean fuckers.

Now that I got that off my chest, I can go on with the business at hand.

At this point I decorated the over skirt with the daisy embroidery.

Since the scale of the dress is for 12" doll, I had to make some modifications to the way I usually work. I usually sew the lace within the seams of the cuffs or the collar, but in order to avoid bulk, I opted to apply all the lace on top by hand sewing all the lace decorations on the dress.

It does take longer but looks better and does not add bulkiness to the neckline.

When working on such a small scale every 1/8" makes a difference.