Pattern Manipulations, part two

Tonight, my dear husband is doing something he's never done before.  He's marking the hemline on the dress.  He's been told this will  happen tonight, and he's been making himself scarce.  So, while he's pretending he's not here, I'll take a few minutes to update the finishing touches.  Well, there really were no major manipulations needed, and that makes me a happy happy girl.

I chose the neck facing in size 18W, and it worked pretty well.  It was about an inch too large, but just deepening the shoulder seams a little until it fit evenly worked just fine.  After all, the neck opening is as simple as it gets with just a circular opening....no squares, no points, so offsets....just straight forward sewing.  I did a little experimenting at this point with different stretch stitches.  I had been using stitch #30 in the construction, when I sewed the hem of the back facing, it made the hem "lettuce" too much. 

Lettucing is a problem when sewing knits because knits do stretch a little as they go through the feed dogs, and your left with this lovely rippled effect.  There are several ways of diminishing this effect, most of those being choosing a stitch that works for the weight and type of fabric you're using.  So I switched to this stitch #24 which allowed the hem to lay flatter.

I must say, I really like this fabric.  I bought it online from Lucy's Fabric two years ago, and it's been sitting in my stash waiting for me to take the plunge and decide to cut into it.  This is a modal fabric which I understand to be a fiber from the beech tree and a form of rayon.  It's a 4-way jersey which has a rayon feel, and it has a nice tight knit.  It drapes nicely and even though it's been folded all these years, each crease has fallen out without seeing an iron yet.  Sadly, Lucy's has stopped stocking fabric and is geared mostly to trims, now.  But, I'll definitely look for more modal like this again.