Princess Slip

Princess Slip, March 24, 1912

Before I began this project, I quickly read through the instructions that were included but didn’t refer back to them again.  I did occasionally refer back to the artist sketch but found that was all I needed to do.

Before I lay the pattern pieces on my fabric, I did two things:  I found the short grain line drawn on the pattern to be too short to actually be useful so I extended the it as seen here

and I redrew the lace placement lines on both sides of the paper in red.

I also used the new Frixion pen to draw lines on the fabric.  The pens are supposed to disappear with heat and water and, since I made this pattern up out of muslin and it’s not intended to be the actual garment, this seemed like a good project to test them.  The one issue with using them here is that I had to be careful not to touch the lines with the iron when pressing my seams as the heat from the iron really did make the lines vanish.

My construction sequence was fairly straight-forward.  Ease stitch the front side sections from the bottom of the lace to the waist line and the back from two or three inches below the angle in the seam to the waistline.  I didn’t find much ease in these pieces and no gathering seemed necessary, just the ease line.  I stay-stitched the angle at 26-27 on the front and at 32 on the back, then clipped to the point on each.

When sewing, I stitched to the point with the fullness in front of the needle (using the needle down option on my machine) and stopped at the pivot point.

Lift the presser foot and swing the fullness to the back of the needle, lower the presser foot, then continue sewing the seam.  This is much easier with the clipped piece on top where you can see it so one side is sewn from the hem up, the other from the top down.

I found it easier to attach the lace after the front sides are sewn to the front center.  I could only find edging lace locally so left out the center lace and was careful in my placement, trying to match the scallop positions where necessary.  I didn’t want the scallops facing only one side and didn’t want to put two rows of lace down the center.  The order of appliqueing the lace was over the seams, on the straps, then across the front.  This eliminated seams in the middle of the lace across the chest.  I also found it to be easier than applying it to the sides and front, then joining the sections.

Here is the almost finished slip

I’m not putting lace on the flounce on mine for two reasons.  One is I don’t have enough lace left and the other is the scalloped edge on the lace.  I don’t want to have to cut around the scallops on that many layers of fabric.  A change I’d make to the general construction is to change the center back from a fold line on a curve to a separate facing piece on the left side where it overlaps the right center back.  Pressing a curve without stay-stitching and clipping doesn’t work well.  The right side stays open so I don’t think it’s as necessary there but, if done, would be moved over so the pieces overlap.