Alrighty-roo. Today things get a bit serious for those of you sewing the cowl bodice Variation 2 of the Holly Jumpsuit. But please don't panic! The trick with bias binding is to t-a-k-e y-o-u-r t-i-m-e. Slow and steady always wins the sewing race.

*To be taken to all the posts in the Holly Jumpsuit Sewalong, please click here!*

Today we will be:

• Applying the bias binding
• That's pretty much it

Here we go

Let's begin by laying out our strips of bias binding. You should have one bodice back binding piece, and two shoulder strap binding pieces. Make sure they're nice and pressed - creased binding will only make your life harder.

Take the bodice back binding strip and one of the shoulder straps and seam them together at one end, right sides together. Press the seam open.

Now take your bodice and lay it out, wrong side facing you.

With the right side of your binding facing the wrong side of your bodice, pin the back binding all along the back's topline, matching the binding seam to the bodice's side seam, and then pinning the beginning of the shoulder strap to the raw edge of the armhole.

Stitch the binding to the bodice with 1/4" or 6mm seam allowance. Go slow and carefully around the curve of the armhole.

Your binding should be looking a bit like this so far...

Turn your bodice to the right side and press the binding up. You'll see that you can continue to press in the unstitched raw edge of the loose strap by 1/4" or 6mm.

Now press the remaining raw edge of the entire binding in by 1/4" or 6mm.

Fold and press the binding over to the front of the bodice, encasing the raw edge. Pin securely into place along the bodice's topline, and continue to pin the remainder of the strap so that the two folded edges meet.

Getting up nice and close to the fold, topstitch the binding into place. You want your stitches to look as neat and straight as possible, and this is especially tricky when you get to stitching the loose strap. Go slow, turning the handwheel on your machine if you're worried about the pedal and motor getting away from you! 

Alternatively, you could do this part by hand - a blind slip stitch would be ideal - that way there's no risk of messy stitches!

Repeat the steps above to apply the second strap binding to the other armhole.

And you're done! I'm not gonna lie, I've done this a thousand times and I still breathe a huge sigh of relief when I finish binding like this. It's just getting that stitching on the straps neat and perfect that kills me!

Side note - looking at this picture now, how great would this bodice look as a halter??

It gives me great pleasure to be able to say, hand on heart, the hard part is now over. For everyone - no more binding, no more buttonholes, no more sleeves, no more fiddly alterations (hopefully!). But what about the trousers?! Let me tell you guys, the trousers are an absolute breeze.