The pleat detail imported

Having learned something very useful from my vintage skirt pattern I have thought a lot more about bulk in all my sewing. My Wild Ginger sheath dress, mentioned a couple of posts back, my really best TNT pattern has been on test case. One thing I have done is overlap the shoulder seams on the facing of this dress (yes it has a shoulder dart but a small one and I just pinch that out) and cut the facing all in one. It is amazing how much reducing this bulk in the facing construction makes the shoulders smoother and flatter.

Secondly I now lay my back dress pleat on the fold just like the vintage skirt pattern. The pattern piece looks weird I know, this means the whole dress back is cut in one piece, but when you fold it in half hopefully it makes sense, and this really does make for a fast and discrete back pleat. It makes me wonder now how many other seams I sew could be better served by folds.