Yesterday, I made a dress in 2 years from the Helsinki sewing pattern in a new mini diamond quilted.
What is quilted jersey?
This material is composed of 3 layers; a fleece sandwiched between 2 jerseys. Everything is quilted and stitched at regular intervals with lines or curves depending on the desired effect.
The fabric is quite warm because you have 3 layers but topstitching flattens everything; to the touch, the material seems quite fine and above all must remain flexible, which depends above all on the quality of the padding used.
This material can wrinkle slightly and is therefore suitable for certain dresses
For the sewing pattern of the HELSINKI dress, I chose to adapt the pattern and the assembly very slightly in order to optimize the use of this specific fabric.
- I lined the top of the body with a fine poplin (Atelier Brunette: sparkle pattern) rather than applying a bias which would have made a finish too thick and therefore coarse for this realization. For this, I cut the front and back pieces also in the fabric of the lining. For the back part, I reduced the width of the pieces by the value of the folds forming the back button placket (i.e. 3.5cm less), so that the lining is smaller and caught in the back tab flap in main fabric (quilted jersey).
- I reduced the width of the back pieces by 1.5cm (in the quilted fabric) in order to avoid the over-thickness of 2 successive tucks for this already thick material. So I cut along the button placket to remove 1.5cm from each side, then I simply overcast the edges and folded the placket over 2cm on each side, thus enclosing the lining.
NB: I didn't put on any heat-adhesive reinforcement fabric because I already have the lining that reinforces the inside of the placket.
The stages of making the dress, in order:
The stages of making the dress, in order:
We have therefore cut the edges of the back busts, we overcast the edges of the back tabs of the main quilted fabric (illustrated above).
We assemble right sides together the bust in front and back by the shoulders for the quilted fabric.
We sew right sides together the front bust and back by the shoulders for the lining fabric (shown above).
The fabric and its lining are assembled right sides together by the neckline.
We open the quilted bust and the lining, we iron, we lay the seam values of the neckline against the back of the lining and we make a stitch 2mm from the neckline (called under-stitching) to stitch together the seam allowance and lining (we do not sew the quilted fabric at this time).
Place the padded bust and its lining wrong sides together, iron (thanks to the "understitching" made in the previous step, the lining stays in place inside). Pin the bust and liner together to hold them in place.
We make a 2cm retraction at the level of the back tab on the quilted fabric; this tuck will cover the selvage of the lining which is sandwiched. Topstitch 2cm across the layers (shown above).
For the rest .... we take the steps of the tutorial / instruction guide delivered with the helsinki pattern.
You can find the assembly video of Helsinki with the lined top here
