Qipao / Cheongsam dress
My eldest niece was living with me while at university and with it being a 5 year course, I had plenty of time to daydream ahead to her graduation day, wondering what kind of outfit I'd like to make for this special occasion. I was thinking that something like the Elodie Dress by Closet Core Patterns in silk would do the trick nicely. I imagined the dress would be relatively straightforward to sew but the challenge would be sewing it in silk.
One evening about 7 months before the big day, my niece and I entered into a rabbithole of Googling inspiration photos. One link that I kept note of was this from the Honeycombers website, in particular this photo of a dress by Mama and Misse.
I was particularly drawn to the lace and buttons, and wanted to incorporate something similar. I had already saved a link to a Cheongsam dress from Porcupine Patterns and thought this would be a great place to start.
The Cheongsam or Qipao is a traditional Chinese dress with a characteristic asymmetric opening over the right shoulder. I own two bought as RTW dresses in a brocade fabric and they always feel very special to wear. This pattern makes it simpler to sew as the asymmetric flap is sewn into place, with a zip opening in the centre back or side seams, depending on whether it is lined or unlined.
My original intention was to make the lined A-line skirt version with cap sleeves, but due to the lengthy fitting process, I opted for the unlined version instead. It ended up being a good decision, as graduation day turned out to be sunny and warm. This dress was months in the making,
Fit
Since the garment is figure-hugging, the fitting process took a great deal of time with numerous toiles. Some things worked, some didn't, sometimes I had to revert to a previous toile when I realised I was making things worse. There was plenty of trial and error but it definitely made for a better fitting garment in the end.
I will document my long and tortuous fitting journey in a separate post, along with what I learned in hindsight and how I might approach the project if starting afresh again. Sign up for updates to be notified when this is released.
Design
I was looking to create the kind of finish on this inspiration photo, with the lace being unlined and no bias binding, but:
This required the dress to be lined, and I was short of time for this.
I had reservations as to whether the lace would be stiff enough for the collar.
I was trying to avoid bias binding for a couple of reasons:
I thought it might look too heavy on the lace.
I wasn't sure whether the light-coloured binding would look right against the red fabric. I considered a red binding for that sleeve but matching the shade would be tricky, and using the same cotton fabric would have been too heavy.
I considered doing a hybrid of lining the lace pieces for the flap and collar but not the sleeve. This would have been possible, but the time remaining didn't allow for:
Adapting the pattern, since the sleeve was designed to be bias bound and therefore without any hem allowance. I probably wouldn't have been too tricky though, or I could have used the lined sleeve pattern piece.
Additional planning for all the seam finishes where the lined pieces would meet the unlined pieces. In particular the armhole seam would need to be neatly finished or for the seam allowance to be pressed towards the dress but would need to be secured somehow.
Deciding on a neat hem finish on the unlined lace sleeve. I found this post by Heather Handmade helpful in going through some options for hemming lace. More about this below in the Sleeves section.
By this point, my brain was starting to ache trying to figure it all out in the limited time left and so my final decision was to:
Use lace for the collar, asymmetric flap and sleeve on that side.
Line all the lace so that interfacing could be applied to the lining for the collar.
Use the lining fabric for all the bias binding.
Fabric
Main fabric
I used a gorgeous Sevenberry cotton in deep red with golden metallic Shippo circles bought from The Rye Canyon Supply Co. in California. My husband was on a trip there and video-called me from the store so I could purchase fabric from the comfort of my home in the UK. The owner was really helpful, showing me all her Japanese fabrics which I have a weakness for and I ended up buying three of them, all in red.
I chose this particular fabric for the dress because red and gold are considered to represent luck, wealth and prosperity in Chinese culture. The fabric also had enough structure for the style but wasn't too stiff.
Lace
I ordered 10 or so samples of lace from various stores, looking for a gold colour to help tie in with the metallic circles on the main fabric. I was initially keen on guipre lace as it looked so beautiful and ornate, but I found the weight of some a little on the heavy side. On showing all the samples to my niece, she pointed out that the gold colour of my samples were perhaps too warm for my skin tone. (I have since had a colour analysis consultation which concurred that I suit cool tones better).
The only sample I had that was on the cooler side was this Very Fine Corded Lace in Champagne from White Lodge Fabric. It was delicate with a scalloped edge I hoped I could use somewhere, and so I promptly ordered it.
Lining
Having previously used Bremsilk lining for my Eden Coat and New Look 6545 Bomber Jacket, I knew this would be a go-to lining fabric for me. Although I didn't need much for this project, I had bought excess lace and so bought excess lining in case I wanted to make another garment out of that. I bought Bremsilk in the Latte colourway from Bloomsbury Square Fabrics.
Sewing with lace
I haven't sewn with woven lace before, only with stretch lace on my Frankie t-shirt, and as trim on the Bibi Skirt by Tilly and the Buttons that I styled it with in that blog post.
That had been a few years ago so I felt it was worth doing more research before diving in. I found some helpful tips in this video by Minerva:
I used the walking foot for a lot of the project to help keep all the layers neatly together.
Marking
Since my fabric markers wouldn't work well on the lace, I used Gütermann basting thread in a couple of stitches to mark the notches. Here is the double notch on the sleeve.
I then realised that I would be lining all these pieces so I could mark the lining instead.
For marking the sewing line on the flap, I first pinned the pattern piece along this line through to the lace.
I then hand basted along this pinned line, but only onto the lace and not the pattern piece.
I could then unpin the pattern piece leaving the basting in tact.
Lining
I basted the lace and lining pieces together to make it easier to handle them when sewing. When attending a workshop with Claire Tyler where I did a similar process when underlining my Eden Coat with cotton lawn, she recommended basting each side separately and leaving long tails at the ends so that once the seam was sewn, this basting thread could be pulled out easily.
Construction
Overlocking
The pattern instructions advise you to overlock certain edges of the fabric pieces before sewing it together. I followed the advice except the side seams of the front piece, where I sewed the bust darts first and then overlocked the side seams to reduce bulk. It took some fiddling to get the overlocker settings right for the lined lace pieces, eventually settling on 2 for all three threads. I had a little bit of gathering on the sleeve head, but I figured this may actually help when trying to ease it in. I then removed the basting threads from the edges that were overlocked.
Darts
I hand basted the darts before sewing them to avoid any shifting around. For the long waist darts, I started stitching from the middle to either end, reducing stitch length towards the tip as recommended in this article by Threads Magazine.
Zip
My zip wasn't quite as invisible as I'd hoped and I made a mental note to sew a bit closer to the zip teeth next time.
Collar
I cut four collar pieces in the lining fabric in total (two of each of the two collar pieces) and interfaced all of them. One would underline the lace and the other would serve as the lining. I didn't want to use lace on the inside of the collar in case it felt a little bit scratchy.
My collar pieces were therefore made up of 5 layers: 1 of lace, 2 of the lining fabric and 2 pieces of interfacing. This meant some discrepancy once all the layers were put together. After basting the layers together, I laid the collar pattern piece over the top and trimmed it down again.
After basting I then realised I had layered the pieces incorrectly as the lace should have been sandwiched in the middle, and so I repeated this stage.
Side seams
I basted the side seams with a chainstitch so it could be undone easily to check the fit. There was still room to take it in at the waist and so I increased the back darts and took it in at the side seams.
Sleeves
I would have loved to have used the short instead of the cap sleeves since they had a straight hem with which I could use the scalloped border of the lace. I tried the short sleeve but it didn't fit the ball of my shoulder particularly well. The cap sleeve looked better with fewer adjustments so I went with this instead.
As mentioned in the Design section, I planned to have the lace sleeve unlined. However, this meant giving some thought to how I would finish the hem as the unlined version had bias binding but I wondered whether this might look too heavy. I found a few resources including this post by Heather Handmade.
I was more drawn to using a lace bias binding, but again, I thought this might be a little heavy as well as being fiddly to make and sew. In the end, I went with a lined sleeve and therefore the bound hem didn't contrast so greatly. If time allowed, I might have tried appliquéing a scalloped border.
I am pleased to say the sleeves went in pretty smoothly. After pinning the sleeves on, I hand basted them in place to help keep it all together which I find helps a lot. I still keep the pins in when sewing but it means I can take them out a little earlier without worrying about things shifting too much.
The seam allowance still showed through behind the lining, so I thought it looked better to press all the seam allowances away from the flap and towards the sleeve.
Bias binding
For the binding I used the Bremsilk lining fabric. I cut 1 inch strips and fed them through my Simplicity bias binding maker. Here's a video of mine in action:
It makes light work of binding but I sometimes find that the recommended cut width of the strip is a little too narrow. I added an extra 4-5 mm onto the width which gave me a much more consistent result. It may have been because the lining fabric was very thin, plus I tend to pull on it a little as I press it before feeding it into the machine as recommended by Lynda Maynard to prevent it from bunching when using it.
The machine provides single fold binding, which I then pressed in half.
Having struggled with the satin binding on my velvet Zadie jumpsuit, I decided to handstitch the binding to give me more control. The thought of unpicking the binding from the lace or stretching out the front edge of the flap was something I didn't want to entertain.
By the time the collar was sewn, the two ends meeting at centre back weren't particularly level and the width of my bias binding was variable, so I had a few goes when hand stitching the binding here to make it look even from the right side. You can see the discrepancy of the binding width I had inside.
Hook and eye
I picked up a tip from Claire Shaeffer's book Couture Sewing Techniques about how to sew in the hook to conceal it. The photo below shows the hook sewn onto the garment prior to the binding being folded over along the dotted line. Once folded over it, the binding will tuck underneath the hook, but over the body of the hook and stitching.
Having done this, I realised the eye might catch on the edge of the folded fabric (shown by the arrows) when trying to undo it.
I therefore sewed up the edge to flatten it as much as possible on both the hook and eye to keep it all neat.
Asymmetric flap
After pinning the front bodice pieces together to align the flap, I tried it on to check it wasn't too tight around my neck. I was relieved to find it was comfortable.
I slowly stitched in the ditch, trying not to stretch it knowing this is on the bias.
Buttons
Instead of the traditional frog buttons, I went with some lovely agate beads along the edge of the flap, having seen this lovely top by Geri In Stitches, one of the sewers I have been most inspired by having discovered her on Instagram.
There was a great choice on OrientalDirect.co.uk, and I decided on these Australian agate beads in 10mm.
I thought the slightly warm reddish tone would go well with my fabric choices but I did pick out the more pale beads so they didn't stand out too much against the lace. I used 7 beads for the dress and there were at least 30 left over.
Lace trim
It was now approaching 2am the night before the event, and I was on the home stretch with only the hem left to do. However, having been disappointed about not using the scalloped edge of the lace on the sleeves, I just had this nagging urge to use it somewhere. With just the hem left to do, I saw an opportunity to add a lace trim to help tie it together with the bodice. Sleep was going to have to wait.
My brain was performing a little under par at this point, and I didn't have time to research the best way to attach the lace to the hem. It didn't seem to fray though which was a bonus.
I cut a 5cm wide strip along the scalloped edge, about 10cm longer than I would need for the length of hem. I had pressed but not yet sewn the hem in case I wanted to adjust it, since I had shortened the hem to take account of the lace. I put the lace right sides together onto the dress, with the edge of the lace level with the hem, then sewed a straight stitch with a 1cm seam allowance.
I pressed the lace trim back down and was very happy with the result. Here is how it looked from the right side.
For the join at the back, I used the technique I described in this post (with a very catchy title!) except instead of marking the join after pinning, I did it after sewing but leaving enough unsewn at both ends to put the two edges together.
At this time of the morning, I managed to sew the ends together with the seam on the outside and the unpicking wasn't going well, so I overlapped the seam allowances and used a slightly messy zigzag stitch but it did the trick and nobody would notice.
This was completed at 3am, and the following morning I hemmed the dress with a catchstitch just in time for the event. As immensely proud as I was of my finished dress, it was eclipsed by the pride I felt for my niece :)
Summary
This was one of my most challenging projects to date, largely due to the fitting process but also the unique design and combining the elements of lace, lining and collar. Inspiration from others played a big part in the final result and I am so pleased with this one-of-a-kind dress.
What I love
The modern twist on a traditional dress.
The mixture of textures in the fabrics.
The challenge this presented in designing, fitting and sewing.
What the dress symbolises to me: it was made to honour my niece's huge achievement, and carries cultural significance of the Qipao dress, fabrics and colours.
What I would change
As ever, there is always more that can be done with fitting and I will detail what else I might have done in my fitting post when published.
I can't really say there's much else I would change but I would love to try the lined version for an even more luxurious feel, or incorporate more of the lace into the skirt.
What I discovered
I have bags of patience for the right project. Having a garment that has great meaning to me and huge desire for the finished result will carry me through months of (mostly!) enjoyable effort. The feeling of achievement at the end is magnified by what you put in.
Taking elements of inspiration from others really helped create a garment that is very 'me'.
I often tell myself that I don't have much time for sewing but with having a strict deadline, I have managed to dedicate a great deal of time to it, and how wonderful that has felt.
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