An Experiment

Now that I have my muslin sort of where I want it, I wanted to try to make it in a silk charmeuse. As you know, silk charmeuse is absolutely wonderful to wear, but a PITA to sew. Conventional wisdom says you need to line it with a sew-in interfacing like silk organza, which gives it body, but allows the sheen and drape to remain. That sounds like even a bigger PITA than I wanted to deal with. But I got an idea. When I was sewing my Singapore silk dress, I used this fusible interfacing on it: It was the first time I had ever used this particular kind of interfacing, made for light fabrics like silk and it worked great. Usually, I use the all-purpose stuff for my sewing and it is the best fusible interfacing I've ever used:

Chris, in my sewing guild, got me hooked on it; I know everyone has their favorite interfacing, and this mine. The tricot worked great on the Singapore silk dress, so I wanted to try it on the silk charmeuse. I fused a sample first:

And found it looked pretty good from the right side:

So I cut the bodice pieces from the tricot interfacing and marked all my darts on the interfacing. Then I fused the tricot to the silk charmeuse, and cut the silk with a rotary cutter, using the interfacing as my pattern. Here's the front bodice already fused and cut out of the silk:

Here's what the right side looked like before the darts were sewn:

I think it looked pretty good; maybe not as good as if I took the time to go the whole couture route, but good enough considering the time and effort put into it. I went ahead and sewed up the darts and bodice. Sewing the darts were a breeze since I could easily transfer all the pattern markings to the tricot. Here's the inside:

And here's the right side:

I can't really tell how it fits since I haven't put in a zipper. I think this is worth going back to the fabric store and getting another 4 yards to make the skirt and finish the dress. The bodice isn't strapless, but will have thin straps to help keep it up. The pattern calls for facings for the bodice, but I usually prefer to line my bodices. But I haven't decided which way to go on that. If it all works, it might be my Christmas party dress for 2011!

Parting Shot: There is no parting shot, but a confession: I managed to give myself food poisoning Thursday night. I suspect my undercooked chicken was the culprit. The good news is that I only poisoned myself - I was in a hurry because I was hungry. I made it to work the next day, but finally had to go home after lunch - my stomach was in full rebellion mode and was not happy. To say my culinary skills are less than accomplished is the understatement of the week. Sigh.