Lining the Sleeved Farrow: Part 1

Today is the first installment of our tutorial showing you how to line your sleeved Farrow Dress. This is a very simple tutorial and great for slightly sheer or very silky fabrics. The dress above (my wedding dress) has a shell and facings made from ivory 4-ply silk crepe de chine with a slightly warmer neutral silk charmeuse lining. Now lets draft our pieces.

Find your two front pieces, 1 and 2. Draw a line across the pocket stitching lines to separate the pockets.

Cut off the pocket pieces and discard. You won't need them for the lining.

For the front: Align the two cut edges to make one solid piece. Remove the center front seam allowance (1/2") since you'll want to cut this piece on the fold.

For the back: Align the stitching lines of the two back pieces to create one pattern piece. The seam allowances will overlap. You'll still need to cut 2 of these.

Now we'll need to mark the new facings and remove them from the patter pieces to create them and the final lining piece. I prefer to start over making new facings at the same time as the lining rather than use the facings that came with the pattern. There's less room for error doing it this way. To start, mark off a 2" facing around the front armhole and front neckline on your pattern piece.

Cut the facings apart from the lining. You're almost there, we just need to add seam allowances so that you can sew the pieces back together.

To each of the cut edges of the facings and lining, add a 1/2" seam allowance. These will be your finished pattern pieces. Repeat these steps for the back.

The diagram above shows the pattern pieces you should now have as well as how many to cut of each one.

You'll need about 2yds of lining fabric no matter whether you're using 45" or 54" wide fabric. This measurement will also work for all sizes. Please note that in the layout above we have the back pattern piece flipped wrong side up! That's it for the pattern alterations, we'll be back in our next post with how to sew it all up!