How to Line the Farrow Dress Pt. 2: Sleeved Sewing Instructions

Today I'll be walking you through assembling the lining pieces of your Farrow Dress. If you missed our previous post on how to draft the lining pieces, you can find that here.

To begin, assemble the main (or self) fabric of  your Farrow according to the instructions through Step 8. Stop here and set the dress aside. This will be the shell of your Farrow.

Start by fusing all of your facing pieces according to the instructions included with your fusible interfacing.

Now lets talk about lining for a quick minute. For my linings I typically use either silk or Bemberg lining. Bemberg is a brand name for a certain type of cupro lining, which contains round fibers that are thinner than regular rayon giving it a finer hand and drape. I highly recommend working with either of these as both are lightweight, breathable, easier to control and sew, and neither will collect static as much as other fiber contents will. Bemberg is a bit stronger than silk so consider that when choosing a lining. The above, which I'll be working with in this tutorial, is rayon Bemberg. One thing to note about Bemberg is that it can shrink with heat and steam so give your yardage a press before you cut!

Begin by aligning your center front neckline facing piece with the neckline of the front lining piece, right sides together. Pin in place and stitch around the seam allowance.

Press the seam allowance of the facing and lining down, clipping the lining seam allowance every inch or so. Stitch along the lining side of the seam line through both seam allowances to anchor them in place. Repeat this for the back neck facing.

Now assemble the lining the same way you did for the shell. I have it shown inside out here so you can see the seaming better.

Now we'll attach the lining and shell together at the neckline (Steps 20-21 in your Farrow booklet). Start with the lining turned inside out and the shell right side out. Put the shell inside the lining and align the neckline edges.

Once the facings are attached and the seams are pressed, slip stitch the lining to the shell at the back opening. I prefer to slip stitch this rather than machine sew because you have more control over where the lining falls and you can ensure more easily that it can't be seen from the outside of the garment when worn.

Since we're making the sleeved version we'll want to anchor the two layers at the armhole before we set the sleeve. Stitch within the seam allowance or baste the two layers together. Then follow Steps 13 -18 in your instruction booklet.

The dress is almost finished, we just need to hem our layers. Hem the outer layer of the dress first.The lining and dress were cut from the same pattern (save the facing adjustments) and you can see how the lining has stretched in length along the curved hem. Rather than cut the lining shorter than the dress, I prefer to cut the lining the same length and measure the amount to cut off of the actual hem of the dress while it's on my form. This way you can be sure your lining is even with the hem all the way around.

With the dress on my form I simply measured up 2" from the lower edge of the dress hem. Trim this excess off and hem as usual.

And that's it! In addition to the Farrow dress you can use this technique on many different garments. Hope this helped those of you asking about lining the Farrow, it was pretty fun to put together. As always, if you have questions let us know in the comments below!

</div