Dress sewing session 2

Though in general, Tetsu and I are staying close to home, we did have a fun social day with friends on Monday.  Sewing with Mrs. Waki for me (and Marlene) and then dinner at Marlene's house with Tetsu coming over in the evening and Mrs. Waki joining us.   After dinner we all played the board game, Ticket to Ride.

Sewing!

Last week Mrs. Waki had cut out the kimono pieces for my dress and designed a placement so that the embroidery flowed across the bottom.  She also sewed the center seam joining the embroidery perfectly and then offset the seam bringing the embroidery more to the center (and removing the need to cut away part of the embroidery.)  She then marked the pieces with basting threads and stabilized the shoulders with cloth tape.  I came along later and basted the shoulders to each other and also the center back seam.  That was all.  In short, Mrs. Waki did all the work.

This week I come to Mrs. Waki's house and found that she had cut and sewn the lining for this dress, also made from the original kimono lining, and again had thread marked all the seams for me to mark for sewing. 

She also made a gorgeous interfacing from the kimono silk for the neckline and stabilized it all again.  I was so floored at just the lining neckline!  Aren't the curves for the back just beautiful!?  And that won't even be seen!

This time I had brought my sewing machine and set it up on a table at the side of Mrs. Waki's room.  She checked stitch length and tension (very important) and she pencil marked her thread marks for me so that it would be easier for me to sew straight...  And I learned that sewing on slippery silk is different from cotton patchwork sewing!

Mrs. Waki pencil marking seam lines for me.  I wanted to show in this photo how the basting threads are used to mark seam lines...  Is this how all seamstresses do it?  I don't know if it is just the Japanese way or that this is how anyone who sews makes markings...  Anyway, the corresponding sides of a garment piece are basted together with two strands of basting thread and then the threads are cut leaving the ends on both pieces...  These can be followed when sewing by machine or by hand and in my case, because the fabric was so slippery Mrs. Waki had me follow her pencil markings and baste the pieces again.  You can see what care she is taking with this dress of mine.  I'm sure I would have laid out fabric, cut pieces, and haphazardly sewed them together with a lot of pins....  Or at my worst, just eye-balled it...

I was also surprised by the care Mrs. Waki took with the ironing of each and every seam.  Iron the seams open.  By finger, dampen the seam with water (heaven forbid steam or spray!) and iron it with pressure to set the seam.  Iron the fabric to the correct side, press iron again.  I also want you to notice this beautiful design on the cream fabric.  Isn't that beautiful!?  Again, Mrs. Waki matched it perfectly on the front center seam going down the full dress...  She is amazing.

At each step of sewing, the small basting threads (and in this "Japanese" method, there were so many tiny threads!) had to be removed and Mrs. Waki and I worked with tweezers to remove all the colored basting threads.

I certainly didn't work as fast as I'd hoped nor as fast as Mrs. Waki had assumed we'd progress, and I only got the neckline dress and lining sewn together and one arm.  The side seams are still undone but we could place the dress on Mrs. Waki's dress dummy.  This is how the front is going to look.  Simple but elegant!

And this is the back where a hook will be placed at the neck.

Looking good!  I sure hope I can match the elegance of this dress by my comportment and demeanor!  I've never worn anything so dressy in my life!  (And the plan is that this will go to Leiya after the wedding in hopes that she will have more of a chance to wear it to elegant parties than I ever will again...)

Friday I have another sewing session scheduled!