Cream Puff Dress, Part 3: Assembling Pattern Pieces, and Lining

Last time, I showed you how I had tile printed the three pattern pieces for the Cream Puff Dress, for Little Miss.  I had 8 sheets of paper for each pattern piece.  I was planning to tape them together.

Using Contact Paper to Assemble PDF Pattern Pieces

 

Then, in my mailbox, what should appear?  A wonderful blog post, that made it all clear. 

At www.beccascreativenotions.com, the author explains how to use contact paper to assemble your tiled pdf pattern pieces.  I decided to try it. 

It was simple, folks!  Assembling the first one took WAY too long; once I got the hang of it, I got MUCH  faster.  It took about two hours to complete the whole process.

1. This part is obvious.  Figure out what length of paper you need, cut it off the roll, and remove the backing.  (Little Miss helped with this.)
2. Organize your tiled printed out pieces in order.  I decided I prefer to start from the top down, and complete the entire left side before completing the right side.  It was easier to keep the alignment correct while working vertically.
3. On each piece of paper, I marked the seam allowance, and the 1/8 of border that needed to be trimmed.  I realized that not every border needs trimming, only half of them do.  It's easiest to match the lines when you place a trimmed border slightly overlapped onto an untrimmed border.  So I only trimmed the upper edges of the pattern pieces on the left side, and the upper and left-hand edges on the right side.  (This way, as you work down the right hand side, you overlap a trimmed border to the lines above, and the lines to the left.)
4. Stick the pieces down!  Once again, I was glad I had used graph paper for the original pattern drafting.  The extra lines made it that much easier to match up the edges!
5. Cut out the pattern along the outer edges of the seam allowance. 

Original 1/4 scaled pattern pieces, with full scaled pieces,
assembled with contact paper





Easy peasy!  A little time consuming, but definitely more precise than taping paper together, and it's also sturdier.  Thank you, www.beccascreativenotions.com!

 








Sewing the Lining!

To test the pattern, I decided to sew the lining of the dress! 



Cream Puff Dress Lining


Only the bodice section is fitted, so I cut my pattern pieces from the top to the waistline seam in cotton batiste.  I sewed up the seams, and held it up to Little Miss--it fits, and the seams match exactly where they should--curved lines in front, side seams at the sides, and back seam in the middle of the back.

 

Cream Puff Dress Lining:  Little Miss is holding the sides, since I haven't put in the back closure yet; but I promise it fits!

 

And, it looks cute, too!

The best part about this design is that it sews up really quickly.  It took a lot of math, pattern drafting, fudging numbers, cutting and stapling paper, printing, and contact paper pattern piece assembling.  All that before I could even cut and sew any fabric.

I'm so pleased with the results so far.

And you were worried that I didn't know what I was doing!

Till next time,--Ayana