An Oops on the Waterfall Christening Gown

Every once in a while I pull out the Waterfall Christening Gown and get to work on it when I have a few minutes. This is one of those projects I can work on while riding in a car, so it's a good project to have around. So far, I've put together the sleeves, bodice and skirt, but now am working on the band at the hem. It's a plain white band that will attach to the dotted Swiss of the skirt with entredeux and will have gathered lace at the bottom. You can see how it's supposed to look in the Christening Gown version in the photo above.

Can you see my oops? When I rolled and whipped the fabric edge, I pulled too tightly and made ever so gentle gathers in the fabric. I've tried but I can't steam them out. There's only one thing to do, and that is to cut the edge off and start over. Drat!

I found that the entredeux comes of quite easily using a seam ripper, but there is no way on earth I can unroll a rolled and whipped edge. In fact, I can't even tear it off as this fabric, Bearissima I, doesn't tear well on the lengthwise grain. Most fabrics don't, I've found. They tend to tear much better on the crosswise grain.  Instead, I'm pulling a thread as you can see by the slight wrinkles on the left and cutting very carefully with my fairly new and still very sharp Gingher scissors. After I finish this I'll start over again with rolling and whipping the edge. At least I can salvage the entredeux.

The good news is that my carpooler will be back from her two week vacation tomorrow and she will drive at least two days next week, so I'll get a bit of stitching time in. But this time, you can be sure I'll be paying attention to my thread tension. To follow the project all the way, please click here.