Sewing A Maternity Evening Dress For Christmas 🎄 Design & Bodice 

Thank you! For years I have loathed evening wear or the assumption that us dress wearers must freeze with the suit wearers are warm and snuggly. That colour is perfect for you.

That green velvet is stunning! A trick I learned with ironing stretch velvet is to place the fabric pile side down on a fluffy towel and iron the back side of the fabric. This will keep the pile from being crushed. Also I’m not sure if you can get the book where you are but there is an fantastic pattern book called ‘Stretch’ by Tilly and the Buttons. The book has a pattern for a twist front dress very similar to the red twist front dress you showed. And they give tips for sewing with velvet and alterations for maternity too.

Do I spot a Midwinterfair mug? 👀 Can't wait to see the next part!

It looks beautiful so far!! A little tip for the skirt - you might need a stiff petticoat beneath the skirt because velvet is very heavy and tends to not “floof” outward at all, even if it’s a circle skirt

Lucy, your sheer happiness just comes through your videos and I love it!

That fabric is delicious! Investing in a walking foot for your machine will make sewing velvet of any type much, much easier!

Will be a beautiful dress. One thing to keep in mind is that your bump size (or lack of one) will affect how even the hemline is if you go for a shorter length skirt. The front hemline will rise up compared to the back hem as your bump grows. Maybe make the hem fold deeper than needed so that you can lengthen the skirt if needed? Another option would be to intentionaly go for an asymetrical skirt hem from the beginning, longer in the back shorter in the front. Then the effect will just be stronger the bigger the baby bump gets. If you look at sweaters you have bougth I am pretty sure that, like mine, the main contruction seams are not actually stretchy in most cases. Most of the time we do not want, say the side seam, to stretch significantly lengthwise. So where you do not need stretch, like the skirt hem, feel free to use a normal stitch. And the cleanest way to finish the neckline (if you want to keep it stretchy) is propably folding it under and sewing it by hand with a herringbone stitch. That stitch is a bit stretchy and you do not need to use tiny stitches to get a good result.

a trick of the trade when working with velvet. You put a piece of velvet, right sides together, and gently iron you can iron velvet, just test it out on a scrap, to make sure if doesn't burn. the velvet will protect the velvet nap on the piece you are ironing!

Now is the time to watch our lovely host become at least 3X more beautiful as a mom!

The reason for the crossover is so post pregnancy you can wear it for nursing 😊

Love the color

This is awesome I love that you are making this! I am a mom who loves to sew and I've just had to come up with maternity dress designs that I like (even more challenging is nursing friendly dresses...still working on perfecting that!). I reached the point where you are talking about facing the neck edge . I made a nursing/maternity dress out of a knit fabric (summer version but similar concept to yours). It also had a v-neck bodice. For the neck edge (all the way around the back and down) I created essentially a bias tape out of my fabric, but kept it folded (so kinda like a long loop...flat spaghetti strap). And then I folded the neck edge down once and just sewed my bias tape just inside of the neck edge. I sewed it twice, once on each side of bias tape, to create a double stitch look on the outside. It created an edge similar to what a commercial made knit dress neck edge looks like, and it really nicely reinforced it! Mine was also a very stretchy fabric so I really felt like it needed some support to keep from stretching out. So far so good! And hopefully I explained that well enough...! Thanks so much for this type of content...I haven't found anyone else on youtube making maternity wear, and I love it!! I would also love it if you explored sewing nursing friendly dresses at some point too?!

The fabric is gorgeous; this dress is going to be beautiful on you!

I found a flannel lined satin fabric to make a winter dress for my niece. It was so convenient to not have to flat line the fabric myself. It wasn't stiff buying it this way too. It had a nice drape.😊😊

I'm loving your aspiration to create a holiday gown with a baby bump 🍼love the the green crushed velvet🌲💚 looking forward to the next video !!

I made my wife a blue stretch velvet dress which she loves and wears for any special occasion. It does look beautiful on her but every time I see it, I remember the agony of sewing velvet 😆 I will try again one day but not yet! Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out!

No matter what you choose to do with the skirt, just don't forget to add in length to allow for the extra distance the front will have to cover to go over the bump! I'd hate for you to end up with an accidental high-low hemline 😂

I love that fabric, its going to be beautiful!

I am sure you have probably made the skirt by now but if you haven't you could do a facing for the circle skirt hem with a lightweight black voile or satin bias binding and then do a prick stitch by hand to secure the top of the hem to the skirt. It should be pretty invisible with your prick stitches hidden in the pile of the velvet. I am quite inspired by your bodice design and I may make something similar for myself. Im not pregnant but I do have a big belly 🤣

Looks gorgeous so far! Looking forward to the next steps 😊 I might have a video idea for you: how you care for your handmade clothing. Particularly how you wash it without accidentally colouring the less vibrant fabrics.

So excited to see the dress! I definitely think you should do a circle skirt…fingers crossed it would work though 😅 love your videos and seeing how happy you are

Looks amazing so far!! You can either steam the velvet or iron it on top of scrap velvet so the pile doesn’t crush. I’ve always been in love with the darn green velvet!!!

Very pretty color! Look at using something called "ban-roll" for hemming the skirt. You could use it on a circle skirt of this material, or really on any type of hem. It would be a great item to add to your sewing, and I think you have the skill and technique to incorporate it.

Do the circle skirt!

Green velvet dresses are my all time favourite 🥰 Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out!

Looks very nice

It‘s a beautiful fabric, and i hope the design works out. I suggest making a detachable modesty panel for when you want more coverage on the chest. That way, you can keep the gathers where they are and you have the opportunity to add a different detail to the dress when you feel like it.

You definitely can press velvet, just make sure you set your iron on for syntethics/silk fabrics and do it on the wrong side of the fabric :) If you are very careful I believe you can do it on the right side of fabric for the hem too. I think the dress will be gorgeous, the bodice already is very beautiful! 😊

I love that green velvet! great colour.

I like how much of the design process you showed us! Thank you!

Definitely iron the darts and shoulder seams

Like a vest in the top. Then adding sleeves with a puff on the middle.

I have a dress made from a similar fabric, stretchy velvet but I think it's four way. It has butterfly sleeves and a circle skirt with v-neck. The neckline is finished by rolling and it looks great (so definitely recommend that) also the material doesn't wrinkle at all so no need for ironing!

Becareful about ironing it, you need a special ironing piece for velvet type materials because you'll just squash the texture. I think you can iron a piece on top with both velvet sides together. I'm not sure...Worth looking into😊

There are a couple of brands of stretch thread that make sewing knits like sewing wovens if you don’t want to use a zig zag stitch and you don’t own a serger (a serger is extremely nice for any knit project though, couldn’t do without mine). They are Miraflex by Gutermann and Eloflex by Coats & Clark. I can’t wait to see how this comes out!

Cute!

I can't wait to see the dress finsished :D It's crazy because a few years ago I found a winter/formal dress with this type of shape (exept for the neckline) and very similar material !

I'm excited to see the end result! The sheen in the fabric might look weird in a circle skirt, and it might stretch out weirdly. I'd do a panelled skirt similar to the magnolia dress from deer and doe.

I love you a Merry Christmas!!! ❤🎄

omg a few years back a wrap dress for my friend in the exact same fabric (even the same color)! it was my first time sewing for someone other than me too so it was very stressful but the result was worth it. funny thing, i decided to put a beautiful zipper in the back and it was A Struggle and then my friend discovered that she could easily put it one without unzipping 😂 and that dress had a tight skirt! so if you are thinking of adding the zipper pls don't, u will be fine without it! if u use stretchy stitch (idk if u have it, it's usually the one with the three parallel lines picture on most of the machines) anyways i wish all the luck with this project ❤

I had a heck of a time hemming a stretch crushed velvet skirt and getting it not to roll up on itself afterward. I should have used some sort of stabilizer in my hem. Something to consider for yours! It’s looking great so far!

If the circle skirt is made from two semi circles, watch out that when it is gathered at the front, the side seams won't match with the bodice side seams. Should be solvable with a bit of maths - make the back part less than a semi circle and the front part more. Of course, if you're able to cut the skirt all in one piece this won't be an issue anyway.

That's so pretty and festive! It's going to look gorgeous. Although I do hope, your next video will not be about how you ironed the velvet before posting this video and reading the comments 😆.

Congratulations 🎉 you are gonna be a lovey mummy ❤

Didn’t know you was pregnant until now congratulations and a safe healthy pregnancy ❤

I'm enjoying all this content from you! So cozy for all my christmas present making sessions.

Im really liking your sweaters. Might you put a link of similar ones ? Thanks loving the green dress!

You're better then me. I can only alter preexisting patterns. I can't make my own.

❤❤❤

Which app did you use for making the sketch? 😊

You might need someone's help with the hem as there's an extra bit. It won't be straight.

I can hear that you are more out-of-breath than usual... ahh pregnancy! 😅😊