Every time I visit the Mood NYC, I stroll by the ponte aisle and lately I haven’t been disappointed. I always find something new and unusual there. When I found this fabric, which I’m calling a laminated ponte, I knew immediately that I wanted to make a dress with it using Butterick 5821.
Now the pattern envelope isn’t that inviting but the line drawings highlight a dress with so much potential. I knew the laminated ponte and a stud trim that I picked up from Mood’s trim department would yield an amazing dress.
As usual there were quite a few pattern alterations done to the pattern to make it fit me. As always, I started with my TNT dress pattern, making a pattern sandwich with it, the pattern pieces from Butterick 5821 and some tracing paper.
New pattern pieces were made insuring that the most important things from my TNT dress pattern, like making sure the bust dart was in the right place and that the pattern was wide enough for my body were copied to the new pieces.
After pattern alterations were done, I moved onto cutting out the fabric. I knew I wanted to highlight both the “right” and “wrong” sides of the fabric on the front of the dress, sort of like a checkerboard. So I used a single layout to cut the dress front pattern pieces to achieve that look.
Applying the Trim~
My first step was to add some Steam-A-Seam2 to the back of the trim, then hand press it down to the dress front to hold the trim in place while I applied it to the dress front. Then I added a few pins in strategic places to further insure that the trim didn’t move on the dress front while it was being applied. I did try to apply the pleather/stud trim to the front of the dress by using my zipper foot to stitch it down…but the zipper foot kept hitting the larger studs so that was a no go.
Handstitching ended up being the only way to get the trim added to the front of the garment in an unobtrusive way…but how? Slipstitch the edges or use small stitches; down the front? I went with handstitching it down using very, very small stitches on the front and longer ones on the back. This was perfect. The pics above are close ups of the application. The good thing is that it works and isn’t very obvious unless you’re up very close to me. I can live with it!
Working with the fabric ~
I’m calling this a laminated ponte…I don’t know if that’s it’s real name but that’s what it seems like to me…because the fabric has a shiny front and a dull back. It’s just like working with regular ponte. I didn’t do anything differently except for lowering the temp on my iron but otherwise it sewed just like any other ponte I’ve worked with. I used a straight stitch length of 2.9 on my sewing machine, a size 80 Universal needle and serged finished all of the pieces prior to construction.
Construction ~
Besides the checkerboard application on the front of the dress, the rest of the dress’s construction was pretty straightforward. I did end up omitting the sleeves. I made them and even started to put them into the dress but they weren’t working. So since I’m always hot anyway and will wear a cardigan with this dress, sleeveless works.
I did have to use the zipper foot to stitch the lining to the dress and to edgestitch the lining into the dress to avoid the first stud on the trim ~ it’s a bigun. I also added lace to the hem of the lining. It just seemed like the perfect complement to the rocker chic front of the dress. Y’know hard and soft! *LOL*
The Finished Dress ~
I was really pleased with how the fabric and trim made this dress shine. It’s a little edgy but not too edgy for my very corporate work atmosphere…though I won’t be wearing this dress on the days that we have important clients and meetings going on in the office!
A few more views…
…as always more later!
Editor’s note: Ponte knit is such a friendly fabric to work with, we can see why Carolyn and the other Mood Sewing Network bloggers love to sew with it. Take a look at all the ponte knits we have online at MoodFabrics.com.
