I Feel Pretty, Oh, So Pretty!

After multiple attempts at sleeve muslins, I truly have lost count. I finally settled on a style that gives a nod to the traditional Filipina sleeve found in the mestiza dress. I found a great tutorial explaining how it is done.

The fabric as I said before is from the Philippines and was designed to make long skirt with blouse similar to this style. I did not want such a formal dress and wanted it to be a little more modern.

Since I am petite, I was able to make the skirt into a close-fitting dress with shoulder straps. I waited a long long time to finally make the sheer jacket mainly because I didn’t want to ruin my fabric with the wrong cut!

Now that I have my custom dress form I felt a lot braver.

I used Simplicity 5959 for the shape of the jacket bodice. Drafted and redrafted the sleeve pattern. I realized although I’m petite at less than 5’1″, my arms are a little bulkier than average (must be all the lifting I do, ha!). So I had to make the sleeve wider. I shortened the bodice which raised the armscye, and I moved the bust dart lower. I also gave it a narrow shoulder adjustment and a broad back adjustment between my shoulders.

So please excuse my messy office and also the tracing marks on the fabric.

Sheer Jacket

Jacket With Dress

I used french seams for all seams including the armscyes. Pinned sleeve to bodice wrong sides together and sewed a 3/8 inch seam. Then trimmed seam allowance to around 1/8 inch. Turned the fabric so that right sides were together then sewed a 1/4 inch seam which enclosed the raw edges.

Wrong sides together 3/8 inch seam trimmed

Completed French Seam on Armscye

Here is a photo of the embroidery. This was part of the fabric. I did not do it!

Embroidery Detail

Back View

Now I can finally move on to other projects! Till Next Time!