Reveal - the Disco Apocalypse dress

Somewhat belatedly, here's my Minerva Crafts make for June (I thought I had already posted this, so it's even later than expected!)

As you might remember we had to make a party dress to celebrate Minerva's win at the British Sewing Awards and to wear to the meet up at the Crafts Centre. Due to unforeseen circumstances I couldn't make the meet up and  a bit late in photographing and blogging my final dress!

As per my preview post, I used pewter sequinned lace to fulfil my hankering after a lace dress, and lined it with navy lining to make the lace pattern really stand out.  This worked well and I much preferred it to matching or nude lining.

I had initially planned to make a straight By Hand London Flora with the wrap bodice but when the lace arrived I realised it had a scalloped edge which I wanted to show off. So I looked for a pattern with a full skirt that was cut straight across the hem and settled on Gather Mortmain. I love how the pleats look on the skirt!

I underlined the bodice with the navy lining and basted them together.  I also marked the darts with basting stitches so that the two layers didn't separate and make the darts wonky. I also spent a lot of time unpicking sequins from the seam lines.  I'm not sure whether this was totally necessary or whether I could have sewn over them. But this gave rise to the name of the dress - by the time I had cut the lace and unpicked sequins my house was covered in glitter and it really did look like the Disco Apocalypse had arrived! We are still finding sequins now!

I also lined the bodice as per the pattern instructions. Due to the contrast, understitching was really needed with this dress to stop the lining peeking out.

I decided not to line and underline the skirt as I had intended, and just went for underlining.  I cut my pattern pieces in lining and hemmed them by machine. I then lined them up with the point on the fabric where I wanted the hem to fall so that I could have the scallops extending out at the bottom. I used french seams to finish the side seams.

I sewed it with my walking foot throughout and I was really happy with the results as it definitely stopped the layers from shifting! The only issue was on the side seams of the skirt where it doesn't sit perfectly - you can see this in the side view above. I suspect this is to do with attaching the lining to the skirt as underlining and the heavy lace wanting to pull down more than the lighter lining. Anyone able to shed more light on this?

The bodice is a bit wrinkly but again I think this it mainly due to the lace pulling down slightly more than the lining. I could probably have fixed it by taking out a lot of the ease but I wanted a slightly looser fit for eating and dancing!

The zip does actually do up all the way. Damn.

The name is based on the state of my living room floor after cutting this fabric - it looked like a glitter ball had exploded!  We are still finding sequins now (yes, I do clean - sometimes!).

Sorry I missed the party Vicki and all at Minerva - I hear it was a good one!