For those of you sewing the sleeveless variation 1 of The Eloise dress, today things really start coming together. One of our favourite things about this dress is how quickly it comes together, while still offering some juicy techniques to keep things interesting and challenging. In this post we'll be sewing the side seams and finishing the armholes with bias binding.

**To be taken to all the posts in the Eloise Sewalong, please click here**

In this post we will be:

• Sewing the side seams
• Finishing the armholes with bias binding

SEWING THE SIDE SEAMS

With right sides together, pin your dress at the side seams and stitch with the usual 5/8" or 15mm. Press the seam open, or towards the back, and finish the excess.

BIAS FACED ARMHOLES

To finish the armholes we're going to use bias binding. This is called a bias faced finish. It gives a really neat and satisfying finish both inside and out, and means you could even use a contrast binding for a pop of colour or a flash of a clashing print!

If you want to use homemade bias binding as opposed to the pre-made shop bought kind, check out this post we wrote on how to make and store your own bias binding.

Take a length of binding and pin it, right sides together, to the armhole starting at the underarm seam. Stitch into place, 3/8" or 10mm from the raw edge leaving the loose ends free about an inch or so either side of the underarm seam.

Now you can take the loose ends of your binding and seam them together to perfectly match the underarm seam.

Trim away the excess bias binding, press the seam open and stitch that remaining gap at the underarm.

To clarify this process, which if you've never done it before can be quite tricky to explain, we have gone through it in our Polly Top video - skip to 7:40 to get straight to the binding bit ;)

Now turn your dress to the wrong side, trim the excess seam allowance and press the armhole seam in towards the dress, and then press the raw edge of the binding in by 1/4" or 6mm...

...and finally turn the whole binding in to the wrong side of the armhole, press and pin into place.

Stitch the binding into place from the wrong side, keeping nice and close to the fold of the binding but remembering to keep your stitches parallel to the armhole's edge.

Repeat this process for the other armhole.

NEXT UP ON THE ELOISE SEWALONG...

In the next post, it's sleeve time! Those of you making Variation 2 or 3, stay tuned....