Fortuny 2.0: the assembly

I’m sewing it together by hand. There’s no way to do this by machine, if for no other reason that the pleating makes it almost impossible to line up the edges correctly.

uneven edge of pleated fabric pinned together
Ultimately I gave up on pins and just held the pieces together by hand about an inch at a time. If I ever do this again I’m not going to pleat the seam allowances.
two spools of blue thread, one clearly labeled Sulky mercerized 100% cotton
Cotton thread because 1) Mariano Fortuny didn’t have polyester in the 1920s and 2) to create  a deliberate point of weakness. If the dress ever tears it will be along the seam first because cotton is weaker than silk.

The edges are finished so no complicated raw edges to turn under. I sewed it with running stitch with a 1/4″-3/8″ seam. I could only use 12-18″ length of thread at a time because it wanted to twist up on itself at any longer than that.

And yeah, I’m sewing all 4 pieces long edge to long edge into a big tube. I’ll figure out armholes, shoulder seams, and neckline after I get the large pieces together.

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Allison Thurman

Raised on a diet of Star Wars, Monty Python, and In Search Of, Allison Thurman has always made stuff, lately out of words. She lives in a galaxy far, far away (well, the DC metro area) with too many books and not enough swords.

One thought on “Fortuny 2.0: the assembly”

  1. Fabric clips won’t work either unless you carefully make sure they are holding any pleating as pleats rather than crushing them (doable but fiddly enough that using them is likely more work than the slippiness of pins)

    I have faith in your hand seaming; you were patient enough to hand sew the original pleat-gatherings so after that some nice long straight seams should fly by.

    Jeannette (who’s currently knitting rows of 450+ stitches on her shawl so gets the small and slowness of it)

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