We’ve been counting down the days to make this gorgeous dress with you! We hope you’ve got your pattern and are ready to start making The A-Line Dress with

PREPARATION, PREPARATION , PREPARATION 

Let’s get this dress beautifully prepared and ready to sew

The best advice we could ever give you is to take your time with your project. We know the feeling of just wanting to get the garment made! We had to teach ourselves to slooowww down and enjoy the whole process; measuring to find your size, preparing your fabric, cutting out your pattern pieces and, finally, pinning and cutting out your fabric. Then, you are ready to sew!

Slowing down and taking your time with each step means that when you are sewing it will be a joy! Rush through the preparation and you are only setting yourself up for mistakes and heartache – especially if you are new to sewing!

If you have bought a printed sewing pattern, remove it from the envelope and give the pattern sheet a lovely iron. If you’ve bought our digital pattern please follow our instructions on how to put it together. If the print settings are a tiny bit out it’s not going to be right! Here is our really useful guide on PDF/Digital patterns

Have you decided which skirt length you are making?? We are making ours in a gorgeous blue denim in the shorter skirt! We can’t wait to team it up with a pair of wedges and rock our A-Line Dress!

FIND YOUR SIZE…

The most important part of this dress is the bust and waist measurement as it is a fitted bodice..  for a guide on taking your measurements see here

Once you have taken your measurements write them down and then take them again! You won’t believe how easily you can hold the tape too loose or too tight!

Find your size – how does it fit against the body measurement chart above?

Once you have found the size you are making, let’s head back to our pattern sheet. It’s really important that you follow the lines for the size you are making. Each of those pattern pieces are going to give you crucial information so familiarise yourself with what they are telling you – cut on the fold, cut 1, the grainline direction of each piece.

If you don’t have any adjustments to make then, using paper scissors, begin to carefully cut out each pattern piece. This is the most important part – cut neatly and don’t take any shortcuts. Slow down and enjoy this part. Before you cut each piece, look at it and see which piece it is – familiarise yourself with the pattern piece’s name – Front Bodice/Back Bodice etc as we will refer to these in the instructions.

The next step is to work with our fabric and layplans and then pin/cut out our fabric..  head over to the next tab for this.

PS – If you’re sharing your pics with us on social media use the hashtag #sewingthealine or sewingthea-linedress and tag us @theavidseamstress so we can follow what you are making!