Still Hand Sewing

Inching ever closer to finishing Butterick 5814/sewing dare.  I took Gertie's advice and hand sewed twill tape onto all the necklines. Concerned about my silk being too light weight for this design I also fused Pam's pro-tricot interfacing onto all the pieces.  This gives the fabric a little more body while retaining the drape, I'd say it behaves like a 4ply silk now.

If I had one bone to pick about the instructions it would be that the boning segment is a little vague. Fortunately I'd bought Gertie's bombshell dress course from craftsy where she did a step by step chapter on inserting spiral steel boning.  I am using spiral steel boning since RTW has taught me that feather weight boning buckles under the weight of my bust.

The basic steps are to....
1. Mark where you want the boning, in the case of butterick 5814 the pattern will tell you where to put it.
2. Then cut the boning to size.  I lucked out here because my boning lengths corresponded with precut lengths offered by corsetmaking.com.  All darts were 6" and the longer back pieces were 8.5".
3. Cut the boning casting to be slightly longer than the boning, about 1/8" on each side.  Sew the vertical sides of the casting to the lining with an edge stitch foot.  Make sure you leave a 5/8" seam allowance on the lining cause you can't sew through spiral steel.  (I accidentally did and had to get a pair of pliers to remove the broken needle point.)
4. Insert boning into the castings and sew the ends closed with a zipper foot.  Ta Daaaa your boning is attached!

Everything else is straight forward,  pleating, sewing, sewing, pleating, hand sew, hand sew, hand sew......hand sew.

Still need to hand sew the hem, the waist stay, hook and eye and probably the zipper seam allowance.  After all that... shoe shopping.