One shoulder sequin dress

Sequin is one of the most glamorous fabrics you can sew with, especially during this time of year! Having heard about this fabric being finicky to work with, I could not wait to experience sewing with it myself and let you know about my experience. In a nutshell, it wasn’t difficult to sew with in a technical way, but it was very time consuming as I will explain.

Inspiration:

The inspiration for this dress first came from the fabric itself. I purchased the last 1 meter of the gorgeous multi-colour sequin from my local Fabricland. I then started to look for designs that I could pull off with this minuscule amount of fabric. It didn’t take long until I settled on the below dress design by Shein.com

Patterns and construction:

I used the lining pattern from McCalls 8142 (a cult favourite of mine!) that didn’t include the gatherings on the shoulder and side seams because gatherings were a no go with this sequin fabric.

For the puff shoulder sleeve, I used McCalls 7967 and I self drafted the skirt.

I inserted an invisible zipper on the left side seam that extended down just under my hip.

Sequin removal process:

And here’s the technical part. The important things I’ve learned when looking into online sewing tutorials on sequin fabrics is that there are mainly two ways the sequins are attached to the fabric:

glued (same as mine)
sewn

Therefore, to reduce the bulkiness from the seam allowance, you’d need to use the appropriate method to remove the sequins:

For glued-on sequins: heat/iron the sequins on low settings (as I have explained below)

For sewn sequins (unpick the thread or cut the sequins)

Here is the process I did:

Conclusion:

So much love went into making this dress and I would do it a 100 times more! It’s true that making a sequin garment takes a lot of efforts but it’s even more true that in the end, it’s all worth it!

I hope you all enjoyed this post. Let me know about your experience working with sequin fabric or if you are thinking about giving it a try! I can assure you that the final results will be very rewarding!

Hope you are enjoying your holidays!

Until the next make,

Cheers!
Ava xoxo