Orchids In May

Stabilising the Waistband of Vintage Vogue V2962

Posted by Stephanie on July 31, 2011 · 4 Comments 

I’m very quickly tiring of winter this year, which is strange because normally I quite like winter. So this weekend I decided to will it away by making a sundress (that I obviously won’t be able to wear for a few months). I settled on Vintage Vogue V2962 which I’ve had in my collection for about 2 years.

I settled on using this floral cotton print I had in my stash. I also found some blue silk in my stash for a lining. The cotton is quite light & breazy & the dress pattern has no interfacing or anything, so I was a little concerned that the lovely waistband on this dress would be forever wrinkled without some extra help. I decided to stabilise the waistband with a combination of interfacing & boning.

To start I re-drew the waistband pattern pieces. This was because the shape of the waistband is achieved by darts instead of seamlines & I wanted full seamlines to make the later steps a bit easier. I started with the front pattern piece. I traced the centre half of the front piece, using the dart seam as the seamline for the pattern piece. I then added a seam allowance to the new side seam. The same process was used to create the front side piece, the back side piece & the back centre piece.

I used the original pattern pieces for the facing fabric & the redrawn pieces to cut the lining & the lightweight fusible interfacing. I attached the interfacing to the lining pieces & stitched them together. I pressed each of the seams & then added boning channels to them. I sewed the lining to the facing pieces & halter neck pieces. All I have to do now is insert the boning when it arrives in the mail!

After all this you may feel that re-drawing the pattern pieces is unneccessary & it probably is, you could instead cut the darts out of the interfacing before attaching it to the waistband (to avoid the bulk of interfaced darts), slash & spread the darts & then sew the boning channels in over the darts, but I just felt that re-drawing the pieces was neater.