The Yellow Dress 2.0!

Funny story: this is the exact same pattern as my yellow dress, except that I swapped out the pleated bust and draped a bra-cup top in its place!

I also made two narrow straps, instead of the halter strap. Other than that, it's the same dress. Isn't draping amazing?

The fabric is a very cool cotton/linen woven in blue and white, that forms a diagonal zigzag pattern. It's fairly heavy, like a tweed.

Here's a side view.

It has a centered back zip, handpicked. It's a metal zip, which I love for a super vintage-y feel.

And the innards: Blue rayon lining and a white grosgrain waist stay.

Horsehair on the hem. (See tutorial here!)

Okay, now that the basics are out of the way, here's what I'm really excited to show you: the bust padding!

You may recall that in my yellow dress, I used bra cups that were stitched to the underlining. I wasn't totally happy with the outcome. They can create some weird rippling at the top of the bodice. Enter bust padding! I got to wondering if I could use light padding for modesty and to create subtle shaping of the bra cups. I found my answer in the bustier section of the book Patternmaking for Fashion Design. Here's how I applied it to my project.

First, I sewed all the bust pieces together.

Here's the underside; it's underlined in muslin.

Then I created the padding pattern. The pattern is simply your bust cup pieces with the seam allowances removed. Cut out your padding. (I used cotton Quilter's Dream batting that was leftover from a baby blanket I made.) Stitch the padding pieces together with the edges butting up against each other (not overlapping), either by hand or with a zigzag on your machine. Here's my first attempt at the handstitching, which makes the thing look like Frankenstein's monster. Sharon later showed me how to improve on it: with tiny blanket stitches.

Then the padding gets pinned on top of the outer fabric, matching up the edges with the seamlines.

Then catchstitch the padding to the underlining around the edges.

See how nice and supported the bra cups look from the outside now?

I've improved my technique on my latest project (it's the hoopin' romper!). The padding is zigzagged by machine, and my catchstitches are smaller.

Then the bodice gets stitched up, and the one-inch seam allowance on the top gets turned down as the facing. The nice thing about the padding is that it creates a subtle shaping at the top of the bra cups, as the seam allowance gets folded over the padding's edge.

Because I'm small-busted (B cup, to be exact), this is really all the support and shaping I need. It's a tight bodice with an underbust seam, so it provides moderate support. The padding provides modesty and a nice shape, kind of like a t-shirt bra does. If you're larger busted, you will most likely require extra undergarments for support.

Okay, one last thing: the boning situation. I went a little lighter on this dress than the yellow dress since the straps provide more bodice support. There are just two sets of bones. One is in the side seams, set into boning channels (in blue). That extra boning length will get cut down to fit, of course.

And then the second set is a hidden zipper set! So the zipper was applied by hand, and there are one-inch seam allowances on the back opening. Because of the wide seam allowances, there's room to get a set of bones in there, after the zipper has been stitched. See the zipper seam allowance in the photo below?

Perfect for adding a bone!

Simply position the bone, fold the seam allowance back down over it, and then pin it in place. Then hand stitch (I used a pick stitch) up the seam allowance to keep the bone in its place.

Whew! That was a lot! Long story short, I'm loving my new blue dress and I got to try out some cool new construction tricks. Let me know if you have questions or additional tips!