365 Days Sewing through My Stash: Too much sparkle? Impossible!

A Little Sparkle!

In my stash, I had a variety of sparkly knit that was supposed to become a mermaid costume. I never got the inspiration to figure out the costume details (like how to make the tail walk-able but still tapered as a tail). As a result, the fabric just hung there. After observing that people often wear black to parties, I decided to stand out at the new year's eve party this year by making a sparkly dress.

The fabric is light-weight knit with little dots glued on it. The machine needle will pierce the dots but there are some issues to consider:

-Glue from the dots will gum up the needle.
-Pressing the fabric could result in a melted mess.
-The fabric may buckle when sewing pieces.

I tested some pieces first and found that a warm iron that briefly and lightly touched the fabric was enough to heat the dots and help them to bend to lay flat.
I also could clean the needle often to help it sew successfully.

I sewed many strips together with varied widths using my serger. The long strips sewed together nicely at first but by the end, the feeding was irregular and rippled. I tried to control the feed by holding each layer separately with my fingers as they fed through. I gently pressed each seam. I decided that the best way to construct the dress would be with princess seams. This would shorten the width of the sections and they would be secured to a lining, helping them to lay smooth. I used some black swimsuit fabric for the lining. This worked nicely.

I love piping AND I wanted the dress to match my new black shoes. So I used piping to accent the side front and side back seams. I also used it to finish the arm holes and neck. I hand sewed the piping seam allowance to the lining, so it cleaned up the edges nicely. I didn't need a zipper, since it is a stretchy dress. I sewed seam tape at the hem and hand-stitched it to the lining.