Progress Report.....

This project is continued from here...,

Please excuse the dark photos.

I was up into the night working on this.

I elected, 

after making some samples,

to use this product....

to mark Anna's Garden Stencil onto

Alabama Chanin's medium weight organic cotton jersey

I can hear Gaia scream......

in my defense, it is a chalk product and will wash out once the stitching is done.

I also (ahem) used a light fabric spray adhesive, which was a 'bit tricky' to work with....

to adhere two layers of fabric for the negative reverse appliqué that I plan to execute

all this to avoid tedious basting and marking.....

this will also wash out.....or so they say

I hope it won't come back to haunt me as I cut away the excess fabric. 

next I basted the neck and arm holes to avoid stretching while I stitch the appliqué 

and the stitching begins.....

Trying a new thing....

While I was busy having a pity party I was also working on this project.

I have been thinking a lot about sewing these past few months.....

and decided long ago that I want to recreate some of my favorite pieces of clothing. 

Now, none of these garments are out of service, 

so this is the technique I am using to start copying the patterns......

First I made a double bed of cardboard to top my table using two used medium sized packing boxes from Home Depot...

then I decided to reuse the crumpled packing paper within for the pattern....

next I placed my very simple dress on top of the paper and cardboard...

and decided to iron that too....

I started with the center panel and marked that....

pushing pins through the fabric and paper into the cardboard at strategic locations....

You can use as many or as few pins as you like....

then I marked the pin holes with a marking pen...

and connected the dots with a marker....

 I added a 1/4" seam allowance in some areas using this tool

Note: I am taking into consideration that the armholes and neck will be bound using Natalie Chanin's technique.....so I will not add the seam allowance in those areas.

After I cut it out along the added seam allowance lines, I folded the pattern in half to determine how well I'd done with the tracing.  As you can see I needed to add quite a bit to one side for balance.

There is a center fold line if I decide to use that in my layout.

I will now move on to the sides and back.....

and since I plan to hand sew and appliqué this dress, 

I'll make a muslin to check my work.

I'll keep you posted on the progress.....