Marie Antoinette Dress - Part 2

When I suggested to my niece I make her a Marie Antoinette style dress she seemed very keen. A week later and she confesses she doesn't actually know what style that I meant...

Uh oh

So I asked her to draw a picture of the kind of dress she would like...And what do you know, looks like a Rococo style to me.

Phew.

However, even to my inexperience sewer's eye I can see the back sketch doesn't quite match the front, but I can work around that. I've even found some polkadot and powder-blue fabric. Yay!

And even more progress: I made up a bodice toile using the Simplicity 5042 pattern I borrowed --- although I have altered it somewhat. The original pattern has a zipper in the back. Agh. No, thank you. --- and when J tried it on, it fit perfectly.

Phew.

Let's hope she doesn't grow much in the next 3 months...

Tutorial: How to Take apart an Empisal Sewing Machine Tension Unit

Why would you want to take apart the tension assembly unit on your vintage Empisal sewing machine? Good question. Perhaps like me, the tension check spring broke and needed to be replaced. Maybe your unit needs to cleaned. Whatever your reason, I wouldn't advise doing this unless it's absolutely necessary.

Should you decide to take your tension unit apart make a photo record of the process, your machine maybe not be identical to mine.  

Finally, I'm no expert, I'm just sharing this in case it helps someone out there because when I broke my tension check spring I couldn't find any info online about what to do for this brand of sewing machine, and I had to figure things out for myself.

In the another post I will show you how to put the tension unit back together - which is a lot more complicated, so be warned!

One last note: in these photos I'm using a replacement tension check spring which I made from salvaging another part, read about that HERE.