How to Sew a Facing to a Sleeveless Bodice

When I first started designing the Penny Dress, I wanted little shoulder ruffles but I also wanted to have a facing (or lining) for the bodice only which gave me a construction problem as there is no back seam to this dress.

I know of the method of sewing a facing and leaving a shoulder unstitched to be able to pull it all through, but this method would not allow for the shoulder ruffles I wanted.

After searching and searching, I asked in a pattern designing group if there was a possibly different construction method that I could include my shoulder ruffles and the answer was YES!

The method was shown to me in pictures with an explanation, but being a visual person, I really needed to test this out quickly as I was like, whaaaaaat????

I did it slowly thinking that there was no way this was going to work, and it was seriously like a light bulb moment…something that seemed couldn’t possibly work, was in actual fact quite easy!

So this is the method you will find in the Penny Dress PDF Pattern but you can certainly use this method for other designs as well. 

Once you try it, I think you’ll be hooked…check out this YouTube clip for a clearer explanation.