Ice Cream Dress Sew-A-Long: Day Two

How are your dresses coming? I can't wait to see them! Make sure to upload them to our Sew-A-Long Flickr group as well as the Oliver+S Flickr Group.
Haven't started yet? The Oliver+S Flickr Group is jam packed full of inspiration if you aren't sure what fabrics to pick or what view of the dress to make.

For those of you that are keeping up with me, let's continue! Now, we ended yesterday having finished up our pockets. Let's move on to the next step. Attaching those pockets!

I mentioned yesterday that I rarely use any fancy sewing tools, so I'm sure there is a better way to do this as far as many sewing enthusiasts are concerned. This is the easiest way for me to do this with only basic stuff on hand.
We need to transfer our pocket placement on our pattern piece to our fabric piece. I do this by first making a little hole in the top two corners of each pocket.
Then, laying my pattern piece on top of my fabric piece I use a fabric pen to make a dot inside the holes that will transfer onto my fabric.

Now you just need to connect the dots! using a fabric pen and a ruler connect the two dots that you made for each pocket.

Now, line the top part of your pocket up with your straight line. Easy peasy! Also if the V on your pocket looks like mine give it another good press and get those little kinks out!
I use a little bit of fabric adhesive on the back of my pocket to give it a bit of stick to my dress. This makes it easier to sew without shifting. No fabric adhesive? Grab one of your kids' glue sticks! You don't need to use much and it will wash out. Promise.

The pattern now says to edgestitch your pockets in pace. This means sew them on sewing close to the edge. :) Just try to keep it nice and even. If you have trouble sewing curves just go slow! Once you have your pockets sewn on, reach inside and pull out those basting stitches that are in there somewhere.

Take one of your yoke pieces and transfer the "V" marking onto the wrong side. You can see mine ever so faintly.
Fuse a one inch wide piece of interfacing onto each side of the opening of the yoke as shown.

 

Using a basting stitch, sew down the flat edges on the top and bottom of your toke 1/2 inch in. This line of stitching serves no purpose other than to be a guide for you when pressing (your next step).

Press those edges in using the basting stitches as a guide.

Remember the little tiny button loop you made first thing yesterday? Go and find it. I instructed you to make it 3 inches long instead of 2 inches long as noted int he pattern. I did this because having it a bit longer is just easier to work with when sewing together. Also if you wanted a larger button you would need it a bit longer. Take this opportunity to trim it shorter if you wish.
Fold it in half and align the raw edges with the raw edges on the right side of your yoke (opening facing down).
Midway down baste the button loop to the right side of your yoke as in the photo. Use less than your 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Grab your other yoke piece. Lay it down right side up.
Now, take the yoke piece that you just did all the pressing etc on and lay it on your other yoke piece right side down.
Starting at one of your open ends, sew from the edge, all through the neck curve, down into your V, and through the other side.
You'll notice in my photo that I got carried away and forgot about my neck "V". If this happens to you, get out the seam ripper! :(

Also sew together at the sides.

This is what you will have at this point. If it is hard to see click on the photo. Your yoke pieces will be sewn together around the neck opening, as well as on each short edge.

Clip your corners and clip inside the curve of the neck. The pattern shows notches, which you can do, but just clipping will work too (as in my photo). Be careful not to snip through your stitching!!

Turn right side out and press! Give it a really good press. When you think you've pressed it enough, press it a little more. Make sure your V is nice and crisp as are the corners.

Lay your back yoke with the opening held shut. Line up your top corners. The pattern asks that you hand stitch the bottom together. You can do that, but I just used a zig zag stitch. You will pull these threads out later so it doesn't really matter what they look like.

That is where we'll stop today! :)

Questions? Don't be shy!