finishing seams - wut?

v1236 marked a milestone in my sewing adventures. there were a lot of firsts: first dress; first times using chambray; and first time finishing seams.

i borrowed my friend's dressmaker's technique bible and thumbed through their seam section. while the descriptions were detailed enough, and often accompanied by pictures, i still wasn't sure what was the best way to finish side seams. i attempted to use bias tape but thought it was too thick. i fumbled around with french seams, and ended up with more fraying. i looked around in my notions box, and had an idea with lace trimmings. i'm sure this is nothing new, but the it was definitely a light bulb moment for me. i decided to enclose the seams with lace.

here's how i did, in pictures:

1.after sewing down the sides, trim seams to 1/2 width of lace trimming. align one side of the lace to the seams and pin.

2. use a zig zag stitch to secure lace to fabric. set foot guide at edge of the lace.

3. trim any frays and fold lace over. pin the other side.

4. zig zag close to the lace edge and seam line and voila!

the other side

yay my first finished seams! if anyone could tell me what the actual technical term for this kind of seam finishing, that would be fantastic! i think i might have to try other kinds of finishing on my next dress, for sure!

new project - McCall's 8581

working on a eightiestastic new dress with tucks!

this dress requires 3 yards of material (44") which was kind of meh because the dkny dress barely used 2. this dress is wider and longer - it has 3 x 1" tucks which is really 2 inches per tuck so that's... 6 inches of decorative material. still, it looked super long. not sure how much i can shorten the hem without having to move up the bottom tucks (there are two). it might have to resort to the latter. 

anyhow, as you may or may not know, cutting fabric is my least favorite part of sewing. I ABSOLUTELY HATE(d) it! yesterday i thought i'd go a different route and went to ace hardware and got a box of its biggest and heaviest washers. i had read on different blogs that using washers as pattern weights are much easier & faster than pinning down patterns. yes i hate pinning patterns to fabrics as well. i have these perfectionist tendencies when i do detailed work like this, and can get really discouraged if the fabric isn't cut zomg exactly like the pattern. i think the dkny dress took me 2 or 3 evenings to pin down, cut and mark. YEAH I KNOW! a huge waste of time!

aside from the weights, i also decided to try out rotary cutter instead of scissors. i don't know how many times i've read "tips on cutting" from different sewing books, and the only suggestion they have is "cut as closely to the cutting surface as possible." dude, whatever! as soon as you slide the scissors underneath the fabric, you've moved it. so, i got a new rotary blade and got to work. prior to this change in my cutting habits, i've only used my rotary cutter against a metal ruler on straight cuts. why didn't i think that R-O-T-A-R-Y means that you can use it on curves? i'll never know. 

so, how long did it take for me to cut out 4 pieces and mark them with this new cutting method? oh about an hour. that's crazy efficiency from what i am used to. 

so, to stress, in order to de-stress cutting: 

pattern weights (washers) x 10ish
+
rotary cutter
=
no more hair pulling!

(this is probably not news to seasoned seamstresses, but pretty phenomenal for me.)

eta: i only tried this on 100% cotton. not sure if knits/rayon/silk/satin will produce the same results.