I am just a few steps away from completing the Calvin Wrap Dress by TrueBias. I have really enjoyed making it. I used to dread having to make bias tape, but now I enjoy it, especially when I'm working with a shiny fabric. And this dress calls for a lot of bias tape.
This dress calls for using what are called lingerie strap slides and rings. I bought mine online from Wawax sewing because I could not find these in a local store. The pieces of the bias tape that extend beyond the dress fabric are what form the straps for the dress. There's little stub straps on the back of the dress and you slides the lingerie ring onto it and then fold it over and sew it securely onto the dress.
Sliding the ring on was the easy part. The hard part was sewing the folded fabric over and sewing it to the wrong side of the front of the dress. At this point, you've got layers and layers of fabric - basically 3 layers of bias tape folded onto each other. It was a lot of fabric to get through, and it was difficult to pin it to keep the fabric in place without the pin getting in the way of the sewing needle. It legit took me an hour to fold and sew both of these little straps onto itself and the dress fabric. The strap would slip and I'd find myself sewing it in a way which would have allowed the ends to be seen when worn, or at one point I was sewing without realizing I hadn't caught the end of the strap. I was frustrated. I eventually put the walking foot onto my sewing machine because I have heard that is useful for getting through lots of fabric. It ended up being just that. I also hand stitched a bit as well - I just wasn't able to stitch the strap completely across as the pattern called for, so I had stitched the sides of the strap onto the dress to secure it better. And that's how I got to that beautiful little mess of stitching you see in the picture above.