Green Gown: Follow the Pleated Pinned Road

The pleats are done and basted in place. I'm about to attach the sleeves.

Here are some pictures of my progress and a tip I discovered to help attach the skirt pleats to the center back panel.

This time I correctly cut my fabric around the lining.

When I redid the center back panel, I corrected an issue that I had in the previous draft--which was an issue I had with the pink summer gown--there was not enough fabric tucked under one of the skirt panel pleats. 

I also applied a lesson I learned from a past gown, my blue striped gown. 

As you can see on the right, I had cut the lining too short so the raw pleat edges are exposed. This time, I cut the lining long enough to cover the skirt pleats. 

But my real discovery came because I corrected the pleats on the center back panel. This discovery helped alleviate my struggle to cleanly attach the pleated skirt panels to the bodice. 

In previous gowns, the raw edge was too short and I didn't have enough fabric for a seam allowance. Thus the seams tended to look less polished then I prefer. This time, with having extra fabric from beneath the pleats, I had plenty of fabric for a modest seam allowance...  

...which made it sew much easier to pleat and create my pinned road.