Cutting Out the Batiste

To begin my gown, my mentor educated me on how to read a sewing pattern. We used the pattern paper and placed it on the batiste (smocking fabric). We used pins to attach the pattern to the batiste. Once the pattern was correctly place on the batiste, my mentor cut out the back section of the gown. After the demonstration, I cut out the two sidepieces and the front section. My mentor then demonstrated how to sew a French seam by sewing the two sidepieces to the front section. In smocking it is very important that there are no raw edges showing. A French seam is a tiny seam that hides all the raw edges. After the sides were attached to the front, we used the pleating machine to create pleats in the batiste.