second time is a charm

Looking at my now totally tubular Teresa (ttt), Husband shook his head saying “You aren’t that fat.” I assured him that I am because my fitting shell fits me perfectly. Turns out that I was wrong, La Muchacha agreed with Husband. She kindly took time out of her regular chores to help me fit my second try at the princess slip. Turns out that I overstuffed ttt, and now she is only Slightly Tubby Teresa.

One of the things that I did was restore my pattern to it’s original size except for the FBA. After measuring all the pieces against the princess line master pattern, I reduced the center front and center back. I'm not wearing a corset so front side pieces all had their waists enlarged by an inch, pretty much eliminating any curves.
Following another participant’s advice to separate the bodice pieces from the rest of the dress first, I cut apart my pattern pieces and did that insertion first.

Searching through the fabric stash, I found some white voile. Undoubtedly bought when I still had fantasies of dressing like Frida Kahlo. I also had some one inch eyelet edging and beading. I ended up buying lace at Huacho Martin for the insertion.

Here is the slip before we fitted it. You can see the red tape underneath, just ignore it.
Disliking the way the neckline looked I removed the lace and replaced it with a smaller gathered edging.
For some reason my photos aren’t very easy to view. White clothes with a white background is not the best planning. In the next shots the fan was blowing the fabric a bit too. I have no clue why everything is leaning.

Here is the slip after the seam lines have been re-sewn. The center back is basted in
place and closed with pins. Still undecided on whether a zipper or snaps will work better, I’m waiting until the ruffle is done.

It really looks much better in person. I’m just an awful photographer.
I have made some changes to the ruffle. In the pattern it’s accordion pleated and nine inches long.



Even though I’m no taller than the average woman in 1912, I decided to make the ruffle an inch deeper. Having learned my lesson when I cut out the rest of the slip, this time I starched the fabric twice, once on each side. I have a ruffler pleater but since this is such a light fabric, I decided to make tucks instead. It gave me a chance to use my nifty tucker attachment.

I am also waiting until after I finish with all the tucks before I put in the insertion. The lace I have is much heavier than my fabric.

I am getting close to done.