[walkthrough] how to sew a dress from otome no sewing - image heavy!

In case anyone is interested in how to sew from Otome no Sewing, I've made a quick walkthrough of how I made my recent koi fish jumperskirt (Otome no Sewing volume 14, page 15 #25). This tutorial is meant for intermediate sewers who have sewing machines, if you are a true beginner, I recommend picking up a sewing book or checking out newbie tutorials on Youtube.

For those of you who are little more experienced, I highly recommend Mode a la Belle's youtube channel and blog for detailed instructions on how to sew from Otome no Sewing, as well as Simplicity and drafting your own patterns. They also scan in and generate dress patterns, here's the jsk that I chose to make that you can actually purchase at their online shop and print out your size range and make on your own. A true lolita sewist's resource!

If you can't read Japanese, which I'm assuming is most people reading this English blog, here is a very helpful blog that translates common terms and whole patterns to get you started. I've used their tutorials and patterns before, would recommend~

http://www.japanesesewingbooks.com/2012/01/17/understanding-a-typical-japanese-sewing-pattern/

Many other lolitas have posted sewing videos and pattern reviews on blogs, they come up in a quick google search. But here is my walkthrough and helpful notes and learning points (not mistakes).

Preparation Steps

• Select your design and gather materials needed. 
• You will need minimum 2 yards/meters for blouses/skirts, and 3 to 4 yards/meters for dresses so be aware.
• I only bought 2 yards of cotton so I left out the waist ties and used cotton muslin as strap and bodice linings and shortened the ruffles.
• Trace the desired size pattern on scrap paper or draft the pattern as instructed, and label each piece clearly, including grain lines and notches and placement markings.
• Otome no Sewing only goes from Asian small to Asian "large "(which is like a medium petite in Western sizes) so to draft a larger size, follow a resizing tutorial such as this one.
• This pattern had the bodice front and front facing in the included pattern paper. I taped together scrap paper and traced out the large size pattern bodice. All the other pattern pieces were basically rectangles, so I marked them out on the fabric with chalk and marker.
• Add seam allowance (1/2 inch, 5/8 inch, etc) to appropriate areas or remind yourself to add seam allowances and don't forget. Common mistake!
• Optional but highly recommended: make a mock-up or muslin out of scrap fabric, or drape the paper on your dressform or your own self to make sure you won't need adjustments before cutting into your final fashion fabric.
• Here's my materials photo for reference! Note, I only have a small household Janome sewing machine, not an industrial and certainly not a serger. That affects the decisions I make when sewing lolita dresses. 

Sewing the Dress

• Pin the pattern pieces on your final fabrics and cut with seam allowances.
• My pro tip: if the dress calls for a bodice lining, use lining fabric to make your mock up. Sometimes the pattern calls for facing, but I don't like facings as they tend to flip out and the edges get messy if you don't have a serger, so I just copy the bodice pieces and make a mock-up/test out of the lining fabric.
• In this mock-up bodice, I realized that the large-sized pattern still had the center darts too close together over the stomach. In Western dress sewing, darts are meant to shape fabric over your bust where it sticks out from your body, so you line the darts up to the fullest part of your boob. I don't know if this particular design is just to make the dress look flat and thus youthful, but I personally didn't like darts so close together. I moved them an inch outwards but I still could have gone another half-inch out.
• Once satisfied with the try-on, I copied the markings to the fashion fabric and cut that out.

• Work on the straps and waist ties (that I didn't have enough fabric for so I left out) first. I trimmed the lace pieces to about the correct length and muddled my way through putting the straps and strap lining together. with lace trimming the sides. My buttonhole attachment didn't work properly so after struggling with it, I gave up and handbound the buttonholes.

• Sew the bodice front and lining darts, then sew both pieces right sides together, sticking the straps in where marked. Turn out and press and top stitch. If you sewed a lining, press about a half-inch from the bottom edge of both outside and inner layers.

• Sew the bodice back piece(s) and the 4 channels for shirring as marked. The pattern had you folding the fashion fabric over, but I didn't have enough, so I seamed the fashion fabric and lining together to make the big piece then folded over.

• Gather the front and back skirts in your usual way. I gather by hand because I hate myself I guess.
• Sew the front skirt panel to the front bodice. Because I sewed a lining, I sandwiched the gathered skirt edge in between the fashion and lining fabrics which meant I didn't have to serge or zigzag the raw edges, and then I pinned skirt in place. You can see where I moved the darts over here.

• Top stitch over the skirt and bodice is the next step, except for some reason I decided to whipstitch the layers from the backside, I guess for more control and to avoid visible wobbly top stitching. At this point, they want you to finish the left and right edges of the finished front piece with zigzag stitching (or serging). But I had the smart idea to French-seam the dress and enclose the raw edges instead. This, as you already know from the previous post, was not a smart idea.
• Sew the back skirt panel to the back bodice. Again, I sandwiched the skirt in between the bodice layers and enclosed the raw edge with top stitching (by machine, not hand).
• Insert 4 pieces of elastic into the back bodice channels and tack the ends down on each side. Finish the left and right edges (or leave them to be French-seamed if you're a numbskull like me).

• Sew the front to back on the left and right edges and add a pocket if you dare. This is when I French-seamed the dress and it was a bad time. The problem is that the elastic shirred back was too bulky for my weak little machine to sew through, and that twice-folded bulk causes a weak and lumpy top edge. But I powered through anyway because I don't want to zig-zag all that lol.
• Sew together the 4 ruffle sections into one super long circle.
• Gather the top edge of the ruffle piece and hem the bottom edge while also sewing the lace onto the bottom edge. I diverged from the instructions here and narrow-hemmed the bottom edge and then hand-sewed lace on to that. I felt the lace I chose was too slippery to try to hem using only pins to hold it in place.
• Attach finished ruffles to the skirt. I moved the ruffles around so the exact center of the dress didn't have a seam down the ruffle and I finally zig-zag stitched the raw edge of the ruffle. Then... top-stitch the skirt and ruffle edges? I didn't understand this step, I didn't think it was necessary but I guess it helps the ruffle lay flat so you can iron it easier.
• Then attach the buttons for the straps (and waist ties if you made them!)

Finishing Touch

 

    Make yourself a headbow/chest or waist bow with the fabric scraps. There are millions of tutorials for bows out there, but I added small lace trim to match the straps to the top and bottom edges to jazz it up. I slipped a alligator clip through the center, but if I'm pinning it to the dress, I just use a safety pin. I'm lazy. I only had a tiny handful of scraps left, so I felt this was a very efficient use of 2 yards of fabric!

Anyway, I hope this was helpful to anyone who has this particular volume of Otome no Sewing or who wanted another perspective to Mode a la Belle's pattern for sale. I love this dress for having a fully shirred back for comfort and cute skirt ruffle and modest lace details and also for not using more than 2 yards of fashion fabric (if you are willing to give up waist ties and facing.) But I did not like the dart placement and if there was a way to not have to make buttonholes, I would try to find that way. However, I admit this is the simplest possible way to make a dress, so I overall agree with their design choices.

If you have any questions about this walkthrough, feel free to comment or email me, I'll try to respond to the best of my self-taught knowledge.