Cheung Sam for my daughter

Quite a few years ago, my daughter chose this dress pattern as her Year 10 graduation dress. It was a trial of difficult fabric (silk brocade …. eeeeekkkkkkk), tricky new pattern, and fitting my super tall daughter. She is a different shape to me, a wonderful slender tall girl, a little hippy or bottom heavy, but still closer to the pattern than I ever get.

She is going to a hen’s night and wanted another dress. She went for a shorter, less formal length (amazingly, above her knees), and this time we went with a Polyester/Rayon Brocade. The fabric is a lot stiffer, although its softened up with handling. Its got a wash tonight so hopefully it softens up more.

Cutting out:
After the debacle of the magical shredding silk, I was determined that I wouldn’t have the problems a second time around. Instead of cutting everything out, sewing seams and then finishing the seam edges …. I cut out each piece, and then immediately serged each of the cut edges. In hindsight, it was probably unnecessary, but I prefer to be cautious.

Reinforcing:
I struggled with the overlap stretching out last time. This time I used some seam support along the upper neck edge.

Zip:
The longest zip on the planet.

Fitting:
Don’t you love patterns that don’t have finished widths, or any information on how much ease is included. My daughter had grown slightly since she was 16 (who doesn’t), not hugely, but just enough to go into the next set of measurements on the packet.  Add to that, its been so long I can’t remember how many changes I made to the dress previously. However, at the fitting point, we had just way too much width. I took it in at the side seams, and under the bust.

We got there in the end ….. metres and metres of hand stitching of the lining …. to the neckline, the zip and the hem. Perhaps bagging would have been a better choice, but oh well.